Check Page 89 Before Buying A Book

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Why do you buy certain books? Are you attracted by well designed covers, by favourable reviews in the media, glowing recommendations from friends? Are you a faithful reader of an author and buy whatever they write? If you buy books in charity shops, is it the low price which makes you grab a book? You may fall into one category or your reason to buy a book may be a mixture of all this. If a book has attracted your attention for whatever reason, do you check it before you take it to the till? Do you read the first pages or even peep at the last page? I'm going to tell you about my book buying habit. I read nearly only books written in English. If English is your native language and you live in an English speaking country, you may now think, "So what? I only read books written in English." Yet, I'm German and live in Germany. I can buy English books online. But they're expensive because of the overseas postage. What if I don't like them? I also have a Kindle from Amazon. From most books I can read the beginning before buying them. But the beginning doesn't interest me so much. Fortunately, many German book shops have some shelves or a whole section with English books. Small towns with small book shops mostly have only books I already know or books I don't want to read (horror, fantasy, sci-fi). Whenever I'm in a bigger city, I go to the big book shops and browse. I read the first page but then I move to page 89. If it contains only a short paragraph, I may look at the page before or after. No problem. Page 89 is a random choice. It could also be page 142 or whatever. The idea is that the author has very likely spent a lot of time on the beginning of the novel to make it as catchy as possible. But have they spent comparable effort on page 89 or 142? Hah! Let's have a look! Does the text read well even later on? What I also want to know and can find out on any page, of course, is: · In which tense is the novel written? I prefer Past Tense. Chick Lit is often written in the first person perspective and Present Tense to make it more immediate and grab the reader from the start. I don't like this. · Is there more descriptive text or more dialogue? I prefer it if the descriptive passages prevail. Too much dialogue makes me breathless. Besides, too much of 'He said' / 'She said' becomes boring. If it's left out, it can become difficult to follow who says what. · Do the characters speak proper English? As English is not my native language, I want to read standard English and not dialect or slang. I checked but didn't buy 'The Help' although I'd heard good things about the novel. 'Black English' spoken by uneducated people is too much of an effort for me. When I have to think about the meaning of strange phrases, I don't enjoy my reading matter any more. A book is a book and not a puzzle. · Is the style straight forward or flowery? How many superfluous descriptive adjectives and adverbs do I find in a paragraph? Does a character 'leave the room' or do they 'walk slowly to the door, put their hand carefully on the handle, open the door silently and then slip noiselessly out'? Guess what I prefer? One can't be too careful. So many books, so little time. I've put many a book back on the shelves. Nevertheless, it happens occasionally that I mis-buy so-to-speak. Ah, well. If the book is of the dead tree variety, I can try to sell it on Amazon Marketplace or donate it to the stall of Amnesty International for the annual flea market in our town. Occasionally someone looks for English reading matter. If it's a Kindle book I don't like, there's nothing doing. Better luck next time.