A Book Conundrum...

How many books do you read at one time?

If your answer is one- go away- I turn up my haughty nose at you. Just one? Bah! Why? Can’t you keep up with multiple stories at the same time? Oh ye of sub-super-level intelligence (er…actually that’s the way books are supposed to be read. One at a time, savoring the intricacies and plot turns of each chapter….hmmpff … you shut up).

Anyway, I’m in quite a fix right now. There was a book fair in my city sometime back. It wasn’t a very exotic book fair with unknown/vintage/rare titles; however it was useful as all the book shops that I frequent were represented there. Now the book stores are so scattered across the city that on any given day you can only go to one book store. Ok, ok you CAN go to more but let’s just say I get so lost in looking through all the stacks of books, hoping to turn up a treasured book somewhere in the churn that I end up spending hours and hours in one book shop. Hence, if I go to one store the others are automatically struck off my itinerary.

Now as we’ve got the facts all straightened out, maybe I can proceed with the crux of this story? Ok? ... Thank you.

So at this book fair I hummed around like a cheerful bee in a garden of daffodils, roses, sunflowers and other assorted tasty flowers. I flitted gracefully from store to store looking for strange titles of my favored authors, strange yet interesting titles from strange authors and oh-what-the-hell-pure-bargains (yes, I did pick up two books for 20 rupees each- that’s under 50 cents for my international readers- yes, you two, right there… stand up and take a bow. Yes, no need to be embarrassed you are the pioneers in international people reading this blog. Yes, yes I know you came searching for “swapping” on google- but the very fact that you clicked through 745,000 pages to reach my blog- now that dedication).

Anyway, now the problem is – which book do I start with? Now these books are transcending all sorts of genres – mystery, action, politics, horror, thriller, drama; there are a few known authors but a majority are unknown authors that I wanted to experiment with.

So now I have a cross-matrix of genres and unknown authors. How do I decide which book to pick up first?

Banking on my super ability of reading two-three books at one go, I’ve tried to maximize the chances of picking up a good book by starting three combo books: known author-known genre, unknown author-known genre, unknown author-unknown genre.

Wish me luck!

And may your life have more action than sorting books to read on different parameters!