Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: What draws you in more: the book’s title, the book’s cover, or the summary on the back cover?

This is an interesting and slightly shifting question – when I used to find most of my books by browsing the library, I would have seen the title first.  Most books are on the shelves so only their spines show, meaning it’s only the title that led me to pick it up and look at the cover and summary.

When I was getting most of my book reading ideas from reading book blogs, I feel like it was the summary, or what the bloggers said about the book, that drew me in.  I don’t recall focusing on titles or covers as much when I was reading blog posts.

Most recently I’ve been reading lots of books off my To Be Read list, which mostly got there because I heard about a particular book…somehow.  A lot were suggestions that weren’t ultimately chosen at my book club, some (non-fiction, mostly) were referenced by other books, some are recommended by friends or someone I know online.  So in all those cases, it’s mostly something about the plot (which would be in the summary) that led me into reading them.

Ultimately it is mostly the summary that gets me to actually read a book – even when I was browsing, I’d look at a title, then a cover, then the summary.  Though frequently I’d only read half a summary before making a decision – I really wanted it to hook me immediately!

What draws you to read a book?  The title, the cover, the summary, or even something else?

Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is:   Do you look at your shelves and stacks of books and wonder how you have ever read so many books?

I don’t wonder precisely that, but I guess I do wonder similar things.  I get most of my books from the library, so I know that the books on my own personal shelves (700 or so) are only a fraction of the total books I’ve read.  I’ve read daily for as long as I can remember, so the total number doesn’t feel shockingly high to me.  Or maybe it’s just that I’ve done enough math to get used to the idea.

Since I feel like I rarely buy books, I do sometimes wonder how I amassed as many as I own!  Some I’ve had for twenty years, though, and there have been some notable trips to library book sales that brought home a dozen books, so I guess it’s added up over time.

I also sometimes wonder how I would ever have time to reread all the books I own, if I wanted to, because there are so many other new books in the world.  I feel vaguely as though I reread most beloved books every several years, but mathematically, it would probably take me five years of nothing but rereading to get through my collection…so, yeah, there are some books I’ve owned and not reread for a long time!  But perhaps someday – that’s why I bought them, after all.

Does it sometimes surprise you how many books you’ve read, or how many you own?