Judging a Book

I have a confession to make: I judge books by their covers. (Even if, as that corny joke from grade school dictates, I am not a judge.) As much as I love the world of books and all the glorious knowledge and wisdom that can be found within its pages, I first have to be drawn to the covers. I do not buy books until I am satisfied that what is outside is as good as what is inside.

I have certain criteria to meet before I actually buy books. When I used to buy romance novels in high school, I steered clear of all those that had Fabio-like models in the covers. I also steered clear of half-dressed women looking as though they were going to swoon at any moment. No, that was just a little too much for me. I picked out the flowery kinds, the ones that had the titles and the authors and nothing else. Just a line or two in front from some obscure critic and a couple of stars from the Romantic Times Journal or something like that. That, I later learned, was not the most effective way to pick a book.

For young adult sci-fi fantasies, I am drawn to those that have life-like pictures of bizarre creatures like the unicorn or a griffin and those that have strange titles of otherworldly places. Which was why, when my sister first brought home a copy of the Harry Potter Series, I did not feel like reading it. Harry, with his large glasses, looked a little bit too cartooney for me. I was wrong about that one.

In college, when I was starting to branch out into other forms of literature, I spent most of my allowance on books. I once bought a book that looked very promising. It had one of those textured covers (a certified best-seller in my eyes) and an impressionist painting of swans in muted tones of brown, gray and white. It was supposed to be a retelling of that fairytale of the wild swans with a modern twist. Well, the modern twist turned out to be a gay love affair. That completely shattered my take on the ancient fairytale. My friends are still laughing about that little incident. I guess I was wrong about that one, too.

In fact, my bookshelf is a testament to a lot of my mistakes. Some are books that I would never have read if someone had not "forced" me to read them. They turned out to be my favorites. Others, have not been read because, well, they were just too boring to finish. Most of those are the ones that have the really great covers. And others-very few of them, actually - turned out to be as good as their covers. I have so few testaments to my stellar judgments. It's actually quite embarrassing. One would think that after all this time, I'd have learned my lesson.

Now, I'm trying to figure out if I judge people in the same standards as I judge books-because if I did, I'd be in really big trouble. My friend said that research show that people assess other people on the first 10 seconds of meeting them. And whether or not they are worth listening to in the first 10 minutes. I've always thought that was pretty harsh even if a tiny voice inside my head tells me that it was also pretty true.

How many times have I judged whether or not I wanted to get to know someone based on how they looked or what they wore? How often have I wrinkled my nose in distaste when someone I thought was a fashion victim turned up? And how many times have I been let down by people I was so sure would be my friends and how many times have I been pleasantly surprised to find a shoulder to lean on from a friend I had so casually dismissed as irrelevant? And how many people have come up to me to tell me that my shyness often came across as aloofness and unfriendliness?

Thank goodness everybody is not as quick to judge as I am. Thank goodness for that little girl I bullied in nursery, who bullied me in grade school and who later turned out to be one of my dearest friends. Thank goodness for students who forgive and forget my silly little outbursts the day before. Thank goodness for people (and books) who constantly prove me wrong. Because looking back on my life, I realize all too well that I am a product of second (and third and fourth and fifth) chances, of second impressions, of second looks, of second opinions.