Eating Books.

This week, I tasted a couple of books and swallowed one. About those that must be chewed and digested... I’m still working on a few that I read years ago.

I love reading books from different genres – mostly fiction and some non-fiction (mainly historical and psychological.)

In my little library there indeed are books that must chewed and digested (and those that I am still chewing and digesting.) Some of these are: Ken Follett’s Century Trilogy, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire series.

And then there are books that I’ve swallowed. I ordered them because they were on the bestseller lists of psychological fiction. I didn’t stop to experience their texture (or the lack of it;) I didn’t swirl them around my tongue long enough to let my senses be taken by them; and now, I don’t remember anything about them at all.

I tasted a few books, and gave up on them. I sampled a page or two and then left the book on the stand. They looked nice. They had lovely covers painstakingly created by good designers. Of course, I picked them up. The blurb at the back didn’t offer much so I opened the book and read a few paragraphs, and then carefully nudged them back in place. I found them bland, but then what’s bland to one must taste scrumptious to another, or a book wouldn’t find itself on the shelves of a retail store.

So while I love Bacon’s classification, I cannot claim to be capable of classifying books, or authors.

As Francis Bacon says, it’s a matter of taste, after all.