How a book can get me to read it in 19 seconds

I don’t spend a lot of time picking out a book to read but its got to grab me in some way because there are so many books to choose from.  Like the bumper sticker that laments "so many books, so little time..."

Some times its just the cover that makes me want to read it.  But usually I read the inside cover flap as well as the back cover to get a “read” on the book.  

There's not a lot going on on the front cover of Michael Faber's "The Courage Consort" so I took a look at the back cover which stated “Faber’s writing is chaste, dryly humourous and resolutely moral.”   Sounds like something I could use right about now.

On page one, we meet Catherine:

“....she actually opened the window and sat on the sill, wondering if four stories was enough to make death certain.  She didn’t fancy the prospect of quadriplegia, as she hated hospitals, with their peculiar synthesis of fuss and boredom.  Straight to the grave was best..”


I dove right in.  So far so good.