A model for the process of choosing a book for pleasure
Public Library Association Spring Symposium 
Chicago March 1999

Catherine Sheldrick Ross
Faculty of Information and Media Studies
The University of Western Ontario
ross@julian.uwo.ca

An analysis of almost 200 open-ended interviews with readers suggests that a comprehensive model for the process of choosing a book to read for pleasure must include five related elements that come into play in concert with each other. Anyone wanting to promote reading for pleasure can help less practiced readers by devising strategies that make it easier for readers to make the discoveries, discriminations, and judgments involved in negotiating these five categories. 

1. Reading experience wanted: the "what mood am I in?" test

   • Familiarity vs. novelty

   • Safety vs. risk

   • Easy vs. challenging

   • Upbeat and positive vs. hard-hitting, ironic or critical

   • Do I want to be reassured/ stimulated/ frightened/ amazed?

   • Do I want my beliefs and values to be confirmed or to be challenged by an uncomfortable but stimulating new perspective?
     
     Readers tended to say that mood at the time of reading was more important for choosing fiction than non-fiction.

    

2. Alerting sources that the reader uses to find out about new books

   • Browsing in bookstores or libraries, including looking for genre labels, limiting searching to certain subject or genre areas, and monitoring displays of new books and "just returned" shelves

   • Recommendations from friends, co-workers or family members

   • Reviews or advertisements in newspapers, magazines, Internet, radio and television

   • Viewing dramatized productions of an authors' work in stage-plays, television or films.

   • "Literary log-rolling" (books highlighted by trusted, favored authors, either within their own books or on publicity blurbs, e.g., "Pyncheon writes jacket blurbs for DeLillo")

   • Lists (prize-winning books; books made familiar on course curricula; lists of recommended books produced by libraries, literary critics, or other readers)

   • Serendipity
     
     Because of their high degree of commitment to reading, the readers in this study were themselves apt to be a key alerting source for others, passing on recommendations derived from reviews, choosing books at the library and bookstore for family members, and buying books as gifts for others. 

    

3. Elements of a book that readers take into account in order to match book choices to the reading experience desired

   • Subject (related to genre in fiction and to topic in non-fiction)

   • Treatment (popular vs. literary or serious style; conventional and familiar vs. unpredictable; upbeat vs. negative or pessimistic in tone)

   • Characters depicted (e.g., presence of strong female characters or sympathetic characters or depressing characters; use of schematized black and white characterization)

   • Setting (the kind of world that the reader enters in reading the book)

   • Ending (happy or sad; predictable or unexpected; resolved or open-ended)

   • Physical size of the book ("thick books" vs. "quick reads")
     

   For the majority of readers, for each particular instance of choice, a single factor was given precedence as an overriding consideration. Hence one reader might be looking primarily for a mystery story, with the secondary requirement being the presence of a smart female detective. Another might say that the major requirement is "nothing depressing or frightening" but she also wants to be "transported, moved into a world that's different from the everyday one." For others the size of the book is a key factor: "And the third thing I look at [after author and the description on the back cover] is the thickness. I will reject a book even if it's a book by an author that I know if it's a small, little book." In narrowing down choices, readers are strongly guided by what they don't want, so that they can quickly rule out whole categories ("nothing too long") and entire genres ("the psychological thriller").

    

4. Clues on the book itself used to determine the reading experience offered

   • Author

   • Title

   • Genre

   • Sample Page

   • Cover

   • Publisher

   The more experienced the reader, the greater their ability to use these clues to make subtle discriminations about the anticipated reading experience. A problem faced by beginning readers is that it takes a long apprenticeship in reading to build up the depth of knowledge needed to interpret the cover information that provide valuable clues to experienced readers. Series books such as Harlequins simplify the process of choice by highlighting genre, publisher and cover in one easily identifiable logo.

    

5. Cost in time or money involved for the reader in getting intellectual or physical access to a particular book

   • Intellectual access (previous knowledge of content or of literary conventions needed by the reader to make sense of the text)

   • Physical access (time and work required before the reader can lay hands on the book itself)

   • Length of time required or degree of cognitive and emotional commitment required by the book itself (easy quick read vs. long demanding read)

   The likelihood of a reader's choosing a particular book can be regarded as a ratio of the degree of pleasure expected from the book divided by the degree of work needed to appropriate, physically and mentally, the book. Some readers said that they often read "books lying around" or they would "read what's around me" or "books I find at home." "I will not go out of my way to read this book," one reader said, but did in fact read it, because the book came easily to hand. Conversely, readers reported being willing to put themselves on waiting lists, special-order, or pay hard-cover prices to read a book that they expected to yield a high degree of pleasure. It follows that people who want to promote a particular book choice can either increase the reader's expectation of pleasure from a book or decrease the work needed for the reader to acquire the book.