Book Hop Extravaganza

Them thar books be hopping like mad today.

Welcome to the weekly Book Hop Extravaganza, as hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books.com. Pull up a chair, explore the blog - here at Audible Candy, we review audiobooks and short story podcasts from wherever we can get them (libraries, bookstores, for free on Librivox) - and leave a comment. I like saying hello to people and visiting blogs! :] And when you're done, be sure to visit Crazy-for-Books and register your blog with the Mr. Linky for a weekend of publicity and book blog discovery!

Today's Book Hop question is as follows, "Do you judge a book by its cover?"

When it comes to genre fiction? Yes, yes, and yes. It's a horrible habit, I know. But the covers of YA, and fiction of a chick-lity persuasion, so often sends me fleeing in the opposite direction - driven by fear of 1) over-sentimentality, 2) lack of imagination, and 3) awkwardly done romance - that I wonder why I still wander over to those shelves to begin with. But I've found interesting books there before, despite the proliferation of faceless teenagers in high school or psuedo-historical regalia, and cartoony shopping scenes with too many cats. I'm compelled by a conviction that there are others treasures I've missed.

The mother of all judgment occurs when I wander into the fantasy and science fiction part of the bookstore. I'm in a rather painful love-hate relationship with speculative fiction at the moment: I adore it (sometimes), but my goodness, the covers? Perfectly hit and miss. There's "dreadfully done enclosing a bad novel", "dreadfully done enclosing a good novel", "well done enclosing a bad novel" (oh, the agony), and "well done enclosing a good novel". I find too few of those.

I'm making an effort to change my bad habits by avoiding them all together and either 1) soliciting book recommendations or 2) sticking with the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die challenge.

In other news, college is exhausting and I need to write like a thousand book reviews so that I can have something to post when I need a break from cultural geography and its unending waterfall of key words. I have been listening to interesting books since my last review. The Hunger Games, Sarah Dessen's Just Listen, The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Yarr.