I know they say it’s wrong, but I have to admit I do it. I often judge a book by its cover. Actually, its title.
How else to explain what prompts me to pick one book over another as I’m browsing among the stacks. If those words along the spine don’t contain “something” to appeal, I’ll never even see the cover, let alone read what’s on the inside.
So it was that I stumbled upon “Seven Wheelchairs, A Life Beyond Polio” by Gary Presley (ISBN 9781587296932).
I usually only look at fiction, but I was waiting for my son to finish his search and found myself standing in front of a display of nonfiction works.
And that title intrigued.
I was not disappointed.
Presley’s account of his experiences with polio was riveting. (I was 50 pages into it before we left the library!)
He holds nothing back as he describes his time in an iron lung and the decades that followed as he built a life far different from the one he had once imagined.
I think I’ll have to start checking out the nonfiction stacks more often.

- Tricia Ambrose