Into the Unknown

To pick up any book is to take a risk. It doesn’t matter its accolades or positive reviews. Awards don’t mean that it will be liked by all. No matter how well meaning your over-dramatic friend is when they grab you by the arm and tell you, wide-eyed, that you simpLY MUST READ THIS!!!!!!!!!!! you may or may not appreciate it on the same level and could therefore incur their wrath. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the book may strike an all-too-familiar nerve. You may dissolve in a puddle of tears and emotion not to be roused for days.

Book choices are influenced by something. Usually it’s a review from a well-known media outlet. More often than not it’s the word of a respected friend or colleague. Occasionally, a trusted bookseller will make a suggestion that turns your world around. Rarely, at least in my experience of repeatedly asking this question, do people pick up a book and buy it on blurb alone.

That, however, is how I’ve found some of the best books I’ve ever read.

To be completely transparent, if you grab me by the arm and stare owl-eyed at me and proclaim that you simply cannot believe that I haven’t read the latest Whatever and will not rest until I have because I MUST, I’m probably not going to. At least not for a very long time. Hype turns me off. Immediately. Thank GOD I read The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter series before the advent of Social Media and rabid Fandoms. Then again, I think the rabidity of a fandom is in direct proportion to its members. Thankfully, though it takes considerable effort, I tend to avoid those corners of the Wizarding World.

If, however, you come to me and say, “Hey, I just read This Book. Have you heard of it?” and then give me a passionately genuine review I’ll give it a chance IF it sounds like something I’d like to consume. My absolute favorite response to “No, I haven’t read that book” is, “Oh how I envy you! You get to read it for the first time!”

The second quickest way to get me to NOT read a book - ever - is to treat me as if I’m an idiot for not having already read your New Best Favorite Tome Ever™

I wander bookstores a lot. Like, a LOT alot, and I see many, many books I’ve never heard of before. Authors who are complete strangers to me. That fills me with more joy than I can express. To see an intriguing title, to not recognize the author in this age of social media and hype, to turn a book over in my hands, read the summary and go, “Hn. That sounds interesting” is a sense of discovery I’d wager is close to finding a sealed Egyptian tomb.

(OK, maybe not THAT cool, but you get the idea.)

Or I’ll see something I’ve heard about for years but know no one who’s read it, who’s mentioned it, know no one who’s suggested it and I consider it a possiblity for my TBR pile.

True, sometimes I’ll hear a recommendation on a podcast that sounds intriguing (as long as they don’t give too much away in the episode. Ugh, SPOILER ALERT people!). Sometimes the hype manages to slip past my carefully guarded borders. And that’s fine. If it piques my curiosity or sounds like a story that I want to spend hours of my precious time with, I’ll check it out. And yet, more often than not, it’s those delightful surprises I stumble upon during my weekly bookstore roam that become new favorites.

The Secret History came to me via a fanfiction reference, a Pinterest aesthetic and an old memory. I worked in an independent bookstore AGES ago, when Donna Tartt first wrote TSH. I remember shelving it thinking it was an interesting title but the summary did nothing to entice me. To be fair, rarely does a summary do a great story justice. It’s just not possible to condense a truly great tale into a few paragraphs. I could go off here on a tangent about the ridiculous requirements of query letters but I won’t.

Wandering around Pinterest had me intrigued by this idea of Dark Academia and in all these collages and reposted Tik Tok videos I saw that old story displayed. Then, while reading a fanfiction, TSH made another appearance. Ask anyone with any type of OCD and they’ll tell you that numbers are important. When this book came to me in a third form, well, I had to investigate. I bought it. I devoured it. It is one of the best books I’ve ever read. Ever. Ask me how many people I know personally who’ve read it?

Zero.

About fifteen years ago, whilst perusing another location of my chosen bookstore addiction, I ran across a book with a gorgeously illustrated cover. It was a very graphic art style dragon and the name of the book was Here There Be Dragons. The author, James A. Owen, is also a graphic artist and did the cover and inside illustrations. They are gorgeous pen and ink drawings that really highlight the charachters and key scenes in the entire seven book series. Yes. Seven books. Is it worth that much commitment. Yes, my friends. To this day, I’ve never read another fantasy series that moved me as much as Harry Potter as The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica. I’ve had some success in getting three people to read the first book. Those three people also read the second book and stopped. One claimed it dove too deep into mythology for her (it dives VERY DEEP). One wrote an entire post about how the author was an insufferable know-it-all who wrote the book just to display his vastly superior mythological prowess (that person is very, very wrong and very, very ironic). The third person hasn’t moved forward simply due to lack of time to devote.

During the intervening years, I’ve heard that the series has been optioned for a feature film. As much as I’d love to see the complex tale unfold on the big screen, I shudder to think what mainstream media would do to it so unless Studio Ghibli or Peter Jackson decides to tackle it, count me out.

My absolute all-time favorite “accidental” book discovery has to be Moonwise by Greer Gilman. If you’ve read my blogs for any length of time you KNOW how much I love this book but you may not know how I found it. I’m not even sure if my husband and I had been married a year and we had a rare day off together. We happened upon a tiny, used bookshop and wandered inside. The books were slap-dash piled and stacked (as a proper used bookshop should be) and dug around for a while. I picked up Moonwise because of the name. I’d never heard of the author. The back of book blurb wasn’t all that alluring except it said that the magical land in which the main characters find themselves is one of their own making.

Most of us had imaginary worlds that we inhabited when we were younger. One of my childhood best friends and I created one that contained maps and a ruling hierarchy. Definitely not Middle Earth worthy, but still, not too shabby for and 8 and 6 year old. When I found Moonwise, I thought what an interesting concept, to take the world you invented as a child and turn it into a real place you find yourself.

So I bought it and wasn’t able to read it for years. I’ll spare you the histrionics as I’ve gone into it before but know this : Moonwise will wreck you for language for the rest of your life. Falling into the world - finally - is like cracking a code, akin to finding yourself suddenly in Narnia without an inkling of how you got there.

As much as I love hearing about a great story, reading it and agreeing with the masses, there’s something delicious about finding something unknown. A secret world you feel only you inhabit. And the thrill of discovering someone ELSE knows it and LOVES it as much as you? Well, that’s a thrill I’ve yet to experience. But I know it’s happened. At least, I hope it has. I still cling to the hope it’ll happen to me.

And I get it. It’s harder now to find an “unknown” book. Everybody posts EVERYthing all the time. Unless you limit your media take, it’s difficult to be surprised by anything. I don’t read book reviews for fiction before I read a book. I won’t even read the Forward to a new edition. They inevitably give something away. Just because you think I should have already read some classic novel by now doesn’t mean you can just give away the ending or deeper implications of a story. The only time I read a review is before purchasing some nonfiction titles. Even then I’m dubious. Just because you think it was “contrived” and “hard to follow one star” doesn’t mean I will. And I don’t like my opinion being colored by someone else’s bad experience.

(That being said, if a restaurant’s rating is below 70, consider eating elsewhere.)

So tell me : are you a review reader? Do you like to know what you’re getting into BEFORE you commit your dollars and sense? Do you only read books that are well known and well received? Do you prefer to read safely? No judgement on my part; I’m just curious.

Or do you, like me, venture into the Un-genred shelves and seek something new and exciting? Do you like the idea of a book you’ve never heard of? Will you take a risk on a $25 hardback just because you like the art work?

Or are you a combination of the two?

As always, I ask because I really want to know!

Have a wonderful day and thank you for reading x

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