I was nicely surprised the other day when I had a new comment on my LibraryThing Profile page telling me I’d snagged a copy of A Leap by Anna Enquist. Surprised because the closing date for requesting books hadn’t even ended. I’ve snagged a few books from Early Reviewers before but only received them months later. In fact, Sue Guiney’s Tangled Roots never arrived at all via LT  – I’ve now received a copy thanks to Sue, herself!  So I was even more surprised and delighted when A Leap popped through my letterbox this morning (it’s a slim book of 84 pages).

When I added it in to my library I found a new feature, well I’ve only just noticed it at any rate. It’s on each book’s Main Page headed “Will you like  it?” –  a bar sliding from “won’t like”, “will probably not like”  “will probably like” “will like”, “ will love”. So now I’ve been checking it out to see if it really can tell whether I’ll like a book or not.

I checked The Hidden by Tobias Hill, which I write about here. LT thinks I’ll “love it” – actually I liked it, well not far wrong there. So I then looked at Death of a Gossip, which found rather disappointing (I wrote about it here). I wouldn’t go as far as saying I don’t like it, but in LT’s terms I’d rate it “will probably not like”, but LT thinks I “will probably like it” – wrong!

Currently I’m reading Tartan Tragedy by Antonia Fraser and I’m thinking of giving up on it. It’s set in the Scottish Highlands where Jemima Shore is on holiday caught up with the mystery of Charles Beauregard’s death. Allegedly he was descended from Bonnie Prince Charlie.  I should be “loving it” according to LT but I’m not – it just seems to be so long winded and far-fetched. Part of my problem is that I’m fed up reading what all the characters are wearing. I don’t like to give up on a book (think of the time I’ve wasted but it’s a library book, so no cost involved).

Well, I suppose “Will I like it?” is just a guide and for fun really, but I hope it’s right about A Leap because it predicts that I “will like it”, maybe I’ll even love it..