Keepers

When I buy an album, I intend that it's going to stay in my collection for at least a little while. Every now and then I'll go in and cull the collection, so to speak. Gather up those CDs I don't listen to anymore, and have no intention of listening to in the forseeable future, and sell them off to buy more CDs.

(A prime example just today of something making its way to the sell pile. "Girlfriend" by Matthew Sweet. I've had this album for close to 15 years. Every now and then I bust it out and listen to it. Everytime I listen to it I think to myself, "This is kind of boring, but I feel like I might like it someday." I'm the same way with Peter Straub novels. I feel eventually I will grow into them, once I matured past a certain point. But after 15 years, I should probably admit I'm probably not going to into "Girlfriend".)

But when buying an album, especially nowadays, there's a lot of research that can go on beforehand. It's extremely rare that I buy an album sight unseen. Occasionally I might buy something I hadn't heard based on a reccomendation, (Marvelous 3's "Hey! Album" being an example of when that worked out well; Lewis Taylor's "Stoned" an example of when that worked out not as well, although I'm still going to give that one a chance; and Tom Waits' "Heart of Saturday Night" an example of although it didn't work out great--I only really dig about half the album--it did at least lead me to his "Closing Time" record, which is spectcacular.)

But more often's the case where I at least have some inkling going in of what I'm buying. I hear a song on the radio, at a party, from a friend, on a website, Myspace, from MTV (hahahaha! just kidding), etc. and so forth. Maybe it's a new album from a band I already like. Maybe it's a side project from someone in a band I like. I have some kind of expectation. I expect to like it. I expect the CD to hang around in my collection for a while.

It's not the same with books. Aside from authors I already know and like, I usually have very little idea what I'm going to be getting. How do I decide what books to buy? Reccomendations. Word of mouth. Buzz. Independent research. Browsing in a bookstore. No matter how it comes about, you really have no idea if what you're buying is going to be any good. So when I'm reading a book, it's usually with no idea whether or not when I finish it if it will go in my bookcase or in the bag of books getting donated to the library.

Millions of people would reccomend Dan Brown, but he's not a very good writer who built a huge fanbase on an interesting premise that the general public was apparently unaware of although it's been around far longer than "The Davinci Code." Millions of people would also reccomend Harry Potter, which for the assumed stigma of being a children's book, is excellent. So any reccomendation/word of mouth/buzz you get you must take with a grain of salt. I ran into a fellow horror buff online who agreed with my lament that most of the new school of horror writers after the King's and Koontz's and Barker's just weren't very good. He then reccomended I check out Tom Picirilli. So I did. Great vibe in that book....but terrible story. So, even with some similar background, we're still seeing different things.

I suppose I could browse through a few pages of something in a bookstore before I buy it. But what can you tell from a few pages? A writing style, that's pretty much it. Not very much about the story. Now granted, a good writing style can hook you in, but if the story is no good, not even the most perfect pen can save it. I know I have plenty of examples of this, but I tend to forget these types of books, so I can't quote any off the top of my head.

However, as I meanderingly get to my point, there are those extremely rare case where you can tell just from the first few pages that, "Yes, I am going to keep this book."

Case in point: "Farewell My Lovely" by Raymond Chandler. On page 3 (actually the first page)I read the following: "He was a big man but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck." I thought to myself, "Yeah! Great start."

Then on page 5: "I walked along to the double doors and stood in front of them. They were motionless now. It wasn't any of my business. So I pushed them open and looked in." At that point I immediately started making room on my bookshelf.

This isn't my first experience with Chandler and his creation, private eye Philip Marlowe. I'd read two other books of Chandler's, The Big Sleep and.....ummm, maybe The High Window. I don't remember. It was in an anthology I borrowed from the library, and I only had time to read a couple of the stories before I had to return it. So I already had a predisposition to like this going in. But you never know, even authors you like don't knock it out of the park every time. That's why you read the book, I guess.

Anyway, this was just my longwinded way of saying that Raymond Chandler is badass. If you're down for some detective noir, check him out.