READ THE END FIRST.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 238, 5 October 1923, Page 3

READ THE END FIRST.

- ■ HOW WOMEN CHOOSE BOOKS. Not one woman in ten will select a novel from the library without first taking at least a cursory glance at the final pare, and as often as not the whole of _,r concluding chapter is skmmed through before she can decide whether she will borrow the book or not. ' To discover the end of a story before reading the beginning is a temptation , beyond her power of resistance. b»e would no more dream of reading a novel until she was satisfied that the concluSon appeal to her than a, mari would dream of reading one of which he already knows the plot and its solut.on. Author, title, and perhaps the opening paragraphs are a man's guide in hi* sefe&orf Only rarely will he glance ' through a book before reading it, an then he is careful to avo.d even .» - glimpse of the final page. g But the thrill of sustained suspense on which a man relies chiefly for in> «jovment of a story makes little appeal to the woman reader. Her interest does not depend on the maintaining ot .<■ mvstervT and lo know how the author wives his problem is actually essent.al ; to her enjoyment of the ta«• „ "If I know the end of a story, a woman reader explained to mc, w,tea "A Librarian" in the London Oail> Express," "I need not worry myselt S how the plot is going to work: out and can give my whole Mention to tie finer points of the scenes and charac ~ *" Whereat a man looks at a novel from _V£J!J_-t«» ""«"■ " «"'"""" which the story arouses. She la, too, a greater capacity of sympathy. She understands the feelings ofthe characters, weighs their motives, puts herself in their place and realises ?he possibilities of a situation as it affecU each character far more act e^ s than docs a man. She feels that she " herfelf is actually confronted with the » problems which the characters are called c upon to solve. There is, perhaps, another reason. \ woman cannot tolerate being mystified and whether her proverbial inability il to keep a secret be fact or fiction, it is c certain that she does not like anyone— I. least of all a novelist—to keep a secret from her.