Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Thieves

How do you choose a new book at the bookstore?

My sister-in-law has a large book budget and buys anything that looks interesting. She's found that green and purple covers tend to draw her in. How's that for kind of random? If you want her to buy a book, just make the main cover color green or purple, chances are she will at least read the cover. That's not to say that she won't buy a blue or red book, but she finds that she is more drawn to green and purple - and I've noticed a lot of the books she recommends/gives me have green or purple covers!

Currently we are poor students, so I don't buy many books. If I am going to spend the money, it's on something that I know I will like (anything by Cornelia Funke, the newest book in a series, etc).

A couple of months ago, my husband went on a book buying binge for me. He was out of town for Valentine's day and felt like he needed to make it up to me (or something). Anyway. He got several books that were on my list of must owns. Then, he picked out two that weren't. One was based on a recommendation from a bookseller (it was The Time Travelers, which was a success). The other book he bought simply because the word "thieves" was in the title.

You see, I seem to have a thing for "thief" books. Here are a few that I enjoyed and can think of off the top of my head:

Peter and the Shadow Thieves, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
The Thief Lord, by Cornelia Funke

and the list continues. The book my husband bought that day was The Shadow Thieves, by Anne Ursu, which I thoroughly enjoyed (see my review here). Currently, there are a few books on my must read list with thief in the title.

Are there any themes to your book buying traits? Do you look for key words/phrases? pretty covers? a particular color perhaps?

2 comments:

Susan said...

What a fun question. I don't know if I have themes, except when I'm trying to research a certain subject. Other than that, I stick to books that I have heard good things about. There's nothing worse than paying money for a book only to realize you hate it. I do end up buying books just because the cover looks interesting, but those are always paperbacks or bargain books. I only buy hardcovers when I love the author or have heard such rave reviews about the book that I know I will love it.

J Scott Savage said...

I'm big on covers and first pages. Especially when it comes to YA. I feel like I can learn alot about the writing style and the audiance by those two things.

It's tougher with grown up novels, because the covers tend not to always convey the true style of the book. And often adult books take longer to hit their stride