Book recommendations, I imagine, are like most advice– as much as I like to dish them out, I don’t always take them. There is too much riding on a fling with somebody else’s long-time beloved, and what if things don’t work out? Hurt feelings all around, as I start doubting their taste, and they start doubting mine. I’m sure friendships have ended over lesser things, and I’m not ready to take such a chance.

And of course, less admirably, there is usually the fact that I can’t be bothered. That my books-to-be-read are stacked up months in advance, and slotting something new into the pile will send my perilous tower a-toppling. That I am stubborn, somewhat annoying, and refuse to read historical fiction, books about soldiers in war, books about dogs, or people you meet in heaven.

(That I will not read Kate Grenville’s The Secret River is something my friend Britt and I can no longer talk about; I know even if I read it and hated it, she would be less annoyed, but… but… but…)

Though I do have my sources. Rona Maynard writes about books on her website, and her recommendations (for Lucky Jim, The Boys in the Trees, The Transit of Venus) have always been enthusiastically received. There are a lot of other bookish bloggers whose opinions I trust. Probably also, to my friend Britt’s credit, if she recommended a book that wasn’t The Secret River, I would read that too. And I have even had positive results from The Literature-Map, which generates an on-line explosion of “If you like this, you’ll love…” matches.

But I’ve had terrible experiences of recommended books just showing up on my doorstep to be loaned. Perhaps I am ungrateful, but I never wanted to read any of them, and the one I did (to be polite) stole an entire week of my life. Which makes me feel fortunate that a woman I met last summer at a book festival didn’t know where I lived– I was sitting on a bench reading Silent Girl by Tricia Dower, when she plopped down to preach a sermon on how I had to read Emily Giffin, who “writes about people like you and me.” Or that everyone who insisted I had to read Harry Potter eventually forgot about their mission to make me do so.

I prefer to take my book recommendations from a higher power. You know, when one friend tells you about a book, and then you read about it in the paper the next day, and later that week someone else tells you they loved it, and then you receive a copy for your birthday from your mother? Take it as a sign. Similarly, when that book you’ve been considering appears in the window of a bookstore around the corner– they put it there for you.

But of course, I don’t even take my own advice. For this morning I started reading the short story collection Too Far to Go by John Updike, after long hearing it championed by my good friend RR. Though she didn’t actually recommend I read it– RR knows better, that our reading tastes are not identical, and she is too polite to foist anything upon anyone. (Perhaps she is also clever enough to know not-foisting is the quickest way to my heart.) But rather, after so many of her descriptions piquing my interest, and hearing an excerpt read at Seen Reading, I finally went out quietly and bought the book of my own accord. Opening it up, taking care to crack the spine as silently as possible, because here is a chance that I’m taking. While I have every intention of liking this book, the off-chance I won’t will require acrobatic diplomacy.

(Image by Create Me This)