Choosing Books: A Potpourri of Recent Reads

What is it that makes us select the books we want to read? How do we choose, from all the hundreds of possibilities, the titles that draw us in? Here are a few books that I've read recently (and enjoyed), and the hooks that made me pick them.

I selected The Goodbye Cousins, by Maggie Leffler, based on the recommendation of an author that I've already read and loved. Elinor Lipman commented, "I loved this book and loved its voice." Well, I love Elinor Lipman's voice, so if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me.

I often shy away from memoirs, especially those written by people I've never heard of. What can make the life of a heretofore unknown individual interesting enough to read about? I'm Down, by Mishna Wolff, had this intriguing note on its cover: "Mishna grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who truly believed he was black." Cover quotes attest to the book's humor, and the publisher compares the author to Augusten Burroughs in her ability to "make you laugh and move you at the same time."

Sometimes, a title is enough to put you off what might be an otherwise wonderful book. That was the case with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley. It is, in my mind, an odd and unappealing title. However, writer Laurie R. King, one of my favorites, praises it lavishly on the cover, and the publisher seals the deal with the following comment: "Meet Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, a taste for homicide, an obsession with delving into the forbidden past of her taciturn, widowed father ... and did we mention she's eleven years old?"

One of the first books I blogged about was The Wednesday Sisters. Its author, Meg Waite Clayton, gives a warm recommendation to The Late, Lamented Molly Marx, by Sally Koslow. What really caught my eye, though, was the publisher's comment: "The circumstances of Molly Marx's death may be suspicious, but she hasn't lost her joie de vivre."

All four of these books are quick, fun reads, and all are recommended.