Page 69?

A novel idea for choosing your next reading fix:

Turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book.

This, apparently, is the advice of Marshall McLuhan.  Via Kottke; Kottke also points to a blog that’s entirely based on the Page 69 Test – very interesting!

That said, I seldom read bits of books before buying or borrowing them. I do read blurbs, but I think my main impetus for proceeding with a book is word of mouth (loosely speaking; I also rely on what bloggers say). I also seem to have developed a large list of authors whose works I assume I will enjoy and there’s always a lot to choose from.

Yesterday my colleague D and I were waxing lyrical about crime fiction, and the list of authors we mentioned was long: Henning Mankell, Sara Paretsky, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Ruth Rendell, Peter Temple (I mentioned Mr Temple; D hadn’t read any of his work, so I’m lending her The Broken Shore today), Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller… I also enjoy talking about sci-fi with other colleagues (one good thing about working in a library: most colleagues love reading too!).

The article that quoted Marshall McLuhan’s advice also made this point:

If maps are useful, so are charts. Bestseller lists weed down the mass of available novels to the 20 or so that everybody is reading – but almost certainly will not be reading in a few months’ time. The trick is not to get into the game late, but to pick the rising titles near the bottom, or to check out what is on the list of the other major English-speaking country before they arrive on your shores.

The downside, of course, is that to follow the charts is to join the thundering herd. I would love, like Dr Johnson, to concur with the common reader; but, at the same time, I want to feel my own person. Uncommon. Getting on for six million copies of The Da Vinci Code had sold in the US by April 2006, in the run-up to the film, largely because five million copies had already been sold. Better to have been a reader who picked it up when it first appeared at the bottom end of the New York Times bestseller list, three years before.

How do you pick your next read?