From One Book Lover

I have begun to judge books by their covers (and titles).  There are so many good books to read, I have to use some sort of criteria to sort through them. Had books I read been published differently, would I have made different decisions? Most definitely. The novel Little Bee originally published under the title The Other Hand in the U.K. before it was published in the U.S. with the new title.  I might not have read it otherwise — the U.K. title holds no interest to me, and the cover is interesting, but not as compelling. A Reliable Wife was published with a different cover for the novel's paperback release.  After reading the book, I found I like the paperback cover, with the silhouette of a fashionable woman walking away from a train, more than the hardback cover.  However, I liked the hardback cover's snow and single cardinal for its artistic value. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published in its original language and country under the tit...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a well-written novel with interesting characters and a compelling story. It started off like gangbusters with an intriguing first few pages describing an old man receiving a mysterious gift in the mail, continued ripe with suspense and intrigue, and ended with heartbreak. I should really have liked it. However, I didn't like it, and I wouldn't recommend it to another reader. First and foremost, it was very lurid. I stopped watching the television shows CSI and Law & Order because every crime seemed to involve a young, attractive woman who was raped and/or murdered in gross, horrifying ways. (As though there is any other way to be raped and/or murdered....)  The excruciating details of these crimes laid bare in 42 minutes made me ill. Such was the case with this book. Every section title page included a statistic regarding violence against women, so we had an idea that more would be revealed. Two main female characters were brut...