This week, for Thursday Thirteen Edition #101:

Thirteen Books Poodlerat Bought Without Reading or Hearing Even One Recommendation Because She Felt a Strange Conviction That She and That Book Were Destined to Be Together (Or Just Because She Liked the Cover)

1. English Lessons and Other Stories » Shauna Singh Baldwin: I actually wanted her first novel, What the Body Remembers, but it was both inconveniently expensive and dauntingly long for a thirteen-year-old, so I used her short-story collection as a trial run. Both books are now favourites. I just wish the edition was better quality—it’s one of only two new books I’ve ever whose pages have started falling out. (The other was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, if that interests you.)
2. Mélusine » Sarah Monette: I’d read the summary of this somewhere, and I loved the title to pieces. I knew I had to read it eventually, even if I had to search it out or order it online. Luckily I found it on sale, in hardcover, for a very good price. I just had a feeling that I would love it—and I was right.
3. Sailing to Sarantium » Guy Gavriel Kay: I don’t even remember why I bought this, aside from the fact that I liked to cover, it was a used hardcover in very good condition and at a very good price, and I loved the title. But I didn’t only buy this book—a few months later, before I had read this, I bought:
4. Lord of Emperors » Guy Gavriel Kay: Also a used hardcover, though not in quite as good condition. I ended up being glad I’d bought both before I read Sailing to Sarantium, because I read straight through both of them one afternoon—it would have been hard to have to wait to read Lord of Emperors. Both books are favourites of mine.
5. Obsidian Butterfly » Laurell K. Hamilton: I spotted this on the bestseller table at the Bay/Bloor Indigo here in Toronto, while I was waiting for my mother. The blurb sounded interesting, and I liked the first few pages, so I bought it. Unfortunately, while I thoroughly enjoyed going back to the previous books in the series, none of the books released after Obsidian Butterfly have been as good.
6. The Rebel Angels » Robertson Davies: I’d kind of heard of Davies, and I liked the cover and the title, so I bought it used. This actually isn’t one of his best books, but buying and reading this eventually led me to his Deptford trilogy (Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders), so it was worth every penny I paid for it and more.
7. Baudolino » Umberto Eco: The cover of this book was irresistible, and its beginning was phenomenal. It led me to buy The Name of the Rose, which I loved, but I’ve been reading Baudolino for the past few years and I still haven’t finished it, so this purchase is one that might be regarded as a mixed success.
8. Wrong About Japan » Peter Carey: I didn’t hear this book recommended, but I did hear it discussed—in an interview with the author on CBC. I’m not entirely sure why this book caught my imagination—mostly the title, partly what Carey said about the content—but it did. I didn’t love it as much as I hoped I would, but it was still worth reading.
9. Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter » Thomas Cahill: I really liked the title, and I love anything about Classical Civilization. And this turned out to be very readable.
10. Brahma’s Dream » Shree Ghatage: I wasn’t exactly convinced that I would love this, but with a good title and a $2 price tag, how could I go wrong? And it turned out to be better than I expected.
11. Old Chestnuts Warmed Up » John R. Murray, ed.: I bought this when I was quite young. It’s a book of poetry, all the editor’s old favourites, with a very seductive cover. It contains quite a few of my favourite poems, including some I’d never read until I bought it.
12. Major Barbara » George Bernard Shaw: This play is performed in Death Mask, one of the books in Jane Dentinger’s Jocelyn O’Roarke mystery series, which I was quite fond of as a child. I bought it and read it, and not only is it one of my favourite plays, it made me into a big fan of Shaw, as well. (The Jocelyn O’Roarke series, as it happens, is also directly responsible for my reading Shaw’s St. Joan and seeing Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale at the Stratford Festival.)
13. The Devil in Music » Kate Ross: I don’t remember when or how I bought it, but it turned out to be one of my favourite mystery novels.

Tags: Thursday Thirteen