There are five tiers of books in my world. Only the highest tier of books make it on to this blog. I thought I’d write a post today to share with you how I go about choosing books to preview on the blog.
Tier 5: Never Started
These are all of the books out there that I never attempted to read. Perhaps a book didn’t look interesting, or perhaps it looked interesting, but I never got around to opening it. Or perhaps I never heard of the book, or perhaps I heard of it but didn’t choose to read it, because, honestly, how many books can one read? Not all of them.
Tier 4: Started but Didn’t Finish
I started to read these books, but did not make it to the end. I am not a person who forces herself to finish every book I start. If I’m not feeling it, I quit.
Tier 3: Finished but Didn’t Love
I finished reading these books. I found them interesting enough to read all the way to the end. I logged them in my notebook where I keep a record of the book read, date finished, and count for the year. But not every book is blog material. Mostly this is because I thought the book had merit and value, but I didn’t love it and want to share it with the world. Lots of books out there contain moments of brilliance within a slog of defects. I prefer to recommend to others only those books that have astounding merit and minimal, if any, flaws.
Tier 2: Finished and Loved but Didn’t Share Widely
These books I finished, loved, logged in my notebook, and intended to write about on the blog. But for whatever reason, the book slipped through the cracks, and I never wrote about it. Sometimes this happens when my copy was a library book, and I didn’t have time to write about it before returning it, and I didn’t feel like going through the effort of checking it out again. Sometimes this happens when I read another book that’s even better and more compelling, and the very good but not spectacular book pales in comparison. Sometimes a book will get lost within disorganization, either the physical mess of my desk and office and bedroom, or the mental mess of my memory. Sometimes I will resurrect a book months later and write about it, in which case it gets bumped up to tier 1. Other times, I admit to myself that the book wasn’t as great as I originally thought it was—otherwise I would have made sure to write about it.
Tier 1: Finished and Adored and Shared Widely
These books are the crème de la crème. I finished them with joy bursting in my heart and mind, logged them lovingly in my notebook, and succumbed to the urge to tell everyone I know about them. This is the only tier of books that makes it on to the blog. Rest assured that any book previewed here is a tier 1 book, a book that I not only read but adored and could not resist sharing with the world.
When you love something, whom do you tell?
