I am an avid book lover. My love for books goes back to the days when I was a small kid. I refused to eat food or go to sleep without reading  or listening a fairy tale from my grandmother. It was this fascination towards stories that made books a matter of great attraction to my eyes. I still love wandering in the magic loop of books. My poor school books could clench only a small portion of my book shelf compared to the length, breadth, area and perimeter occupied by the dearest story books. The same episode continued even when I grew up. There may not be any fashionable clothes or alluring cosmetics in my wardrobe.So what ? My favourite pals were always there with me no matter how ugly I look in my messed up hair, old clothes and literally without no sense of make up.

But there is one problem. I can be an ardent admirer of books. Life may look dull to me without their company. Still, this can’t take away the fact that I am very choosy when it comes to reading book(s). This fussy habit of reading has made me skip many wonderful books that have been accepted worldwide with much interest and enthusiasm. I can give one such example where I didn’t touch even a single volume from a famous book series till date, just because the story didn’t appeal me somehow. It is the Harry Potter series (with all due respect to J.K Rowling and her amazing creations).

Then what are the factors that actually woo me to buy(or borrow) a book and carry it with me back home ?

1.Name of the book :

This is the first (and sometimes the only) thing that makes my hand stretch towards a book. If the name looks interesting, then 90% of my mind gets convinced to buy it even before holding the same in hand. The name plays this kind of significant role when I take the task of selecting a book. It’s almost the way I behave in a restaurant. The name of the dish matters the most to me no matter how it tastes. Most of the book names that catch my attention end up either being a romantic novel or one from a thriller series. However, luckily I haven’t made any disappointing choice ever. All the books that I bought were worth reading.

2.Brief description of the book :

The second task I do after picking up a book (depending hugely upon it’s engaging name) is to take a glimpse what the book is all about. I take hardly a minute to finish this job. After all, how much time does it take for anyone to flip the book backwards or open the Prologue page and give a quick glance on the storyline ? Yes, you are right. That’s what I said- hardly a minute. However, this little effort actually is one of the another important factor that decides my future with the book. The description looks compelling, I move towards the billing counter. Narratives smell similar to one of my earlier reads, I put the book back into the shelf and proceed further in search of my next hunt.

3.Author of the book :

To most of the readers, author’s name is the most critical aspect while they purchase a book. They will first look for the renowned names in a book shop and settle for their favourite writer. But, this straight forward approach doesn’t seem to work for me. Checking an author’s name comes at the last number in my to-do list. The name of the author is something I am not worried about at all. If the above two criteria in rules 1 & 2 are already fulfilled, then probing the poor author’s name looks like an insult to the book in my eyes.

There are some exceptions to this third 3rd rule though. When I put my hands on the awesome works of Sharat Chandra Chattapadhyaya, Satyajit Ray, Suchitra Bhattacharjee , Chetan Bhagat, then I don’t mind skipping the first two rules of my book selection process. I simply love to stick with the last rule.

You can call me an impulsive book shopper.I can’t deny that I act like that one. This weird book selection regime has it’s plus points (surprisingly) and minus points (obviously). The plus point is that you get to read some of the best works of writers whose names are not that popular. After all, it’s the art of story-telling that matters at the end of the day.

Coming to the minus point, you end up buying sometimes the fourth volume of a series without even knowing what the previous three series were about. Why? The reason is simple. I rarely give a look in the binding section of a book which (to my bad luck) proudly holds the volume count of the series. Is it possible ? Of course it is. Else, how could I buy The Dark Tower:Volume IV by Stephen King ? Anyway I need to go through the book before I can comment further on my bad luck. Looks like I need to include rule no. 4 soon in my checklist.

What is your checklist that you ensure are well tick-marked before you purchase a book? Share with me so that I can incorporate them in my to-do list.