While I was having tea at my favorite place in Maastricht, the church turned bookstore I had already mentioned, I came upon this quote:
"There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag-- and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought to, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-- and vice versa. Don't read a book out of its right time for you." -Doris Lessing
I have often been asked how to pick out a good book at a bookstore or library. Perhaps people assume that because I read a lot, I have some sort of insight. The truth is that there really is no science to picking out a book. I walk around bookstores a lot, trying to control myself so as not to damage my pocketbook, and I pick up books. I see the cover, the title, read the back, sometimes I even open it up to a random page and read. Sometimes good covers and titles get you good books, and sometimes they frame you into buying bad books. I read articles and reviews about books and I write down the names of the books that interest me (I have started doing this in an attempt to buy books when I can afford them rather than when I want to...this is the hardest type of economizing I've ever done). The truth is that there is no formula in picking a good book. The reader, the book and the timing in the reader's life make it a great book or a terrible one. But like anything in life, this is a matter of trial and error.
I've found myself going back to this bookstore every day that I am in Maastricht. Although there is an English section, I have tried to avoid it. Part of the reason for avoiding it is because I have a kindle now (I sold my book-soul) and although I miss the paper on my hands, I thoroughly enjoy the lightness, the mobility and even the estimated time to finish a book that it provides. The second reason and the most important one is that I yearn to walk around that bookstore and pick up any book that catches my eye and perform the same selection ritual I have already mentioned in this post. I am waiting to solve this mystery of language, to decode dutch and make it my own, and continue this never ending love affair with books in a different language. Soon!
