Our public library has their annual book sale this weekend, and I just came home triumphantly with two paper bags full of books – 42 of them!!! – for $5.00 a bag. Two hours of anticipatory bliss of roaming a civic center full of tables piled with books, never knowing the treasure that you’ll uncover just behind that next Danielle Steele. However, as I cruised along, I began to realize that there were a few words that immediately made me put a book down and move along. Words on the cover such as :
voluptuous
bitter
ravishing
spy thriller
raven-haired
The books with words like “voluptuous” in the blurb, I generally don’t even get that far. As a pretty good rule of thumb, I avoid books with the title or author in cursive. You can tell a lot about genre by the style of the cover.
Southwest and hard-boiled. Although I’m sure there are wonderful books set in the southwest, they don’t interest me. And although I enjoy mysteries, I like Agatha Christie mysteries, not trench-coated, cigarette smoking 40s detectives.
“In the traditon of Stephen King,” or anything similar. And as it happens, I mostly like Mr. King’s horror novels. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for works by authors following in his so-called tradition.
And if it wasn’t written in during the medieval era or the 19th century, the words “romance” or “romantic” pretty well indicate that the book in question is not for me.
And many of the words already listed in this thread.
Any book with the words ‘Andy’ and ‘Rooney’ on the cover get bypassed. I swear, in a library book sale the books by Andy Rooney outnumber all the Stephen Kings and Danielle Steeles put together.
South Beach Diet. Low Carb Diet. Pritkin Diet. We know. We KNOW.
‘Court Room’ shennanigans, ‘lawyers’, ‘ripped from today’s headlines’ - these books are the equivalent of a grade C law drama on cable TV.
Which means, it will have lots of swearing and violence or something boring like that. Authors, there is no longer a lot of shock value in being edgy or gritty or pushing the envelope. It’s been done. People who claim to break tradition or color outside the lines are not doing anything new at this point; they’re conforming.
Do something interesting that requires a little thought, already.
There were tons of Dick Francis books, but I have every book he’s ever written. Lots of 80’s giants like James Mitchell, Wouk, etc.
I passed up all the cookbook section – it was all fad diet stuff:
Low Carb cookbook
Healing with Fish
Cooking according to your Astrological Sign
My grandfather had a large number of paperback books described as “lusty”. As far as I can figure out, in the 40s and 50s, this meant that the unmarried characters kissed in the book, and might have groped each other a bit when not actually in the eye of the reader.
From those two words, I thought you were talking about cookbooks, then I read on. I tend to avoid cookbooks with hard-boiled eggs in them, too. Not a fan. Southwestern cooking, on the other hand, is a favorite.