I'm really confused about what I can write and what I can't write here on Goodreads. One of my recent reviews was deleted for being not about the book. 
 Your review of Logic: A Very Short Introduction was recently flagged by Goodreads members as potentially off-topic. As the review is not about the book, it has been removed from the site. 
 I can't complain about that, they were quite right - I had actually shelved that book on my TO READ site, so by definition, I hadn't read it yet. 
 So the logic is, I think, that ANY remark about a book you haven't read yet is "potentially off-topic". 
 This means that ANY comments you have made about a book on your TO READ shelves should be deleted by the unhappy staff members who are tasked with zapping this stuff. (Do they read George Orwell essays in their lunch breaks? I would like to think so.) 
 They don't need to wait for the non-review to be flagged, they can just go ahead and zap any review they find on anyone's TO READ shelf. But, you know, they aren't doing that... so far. Well, not to me, anyway. 
 So until we get a little more clarity about this, I would like to present a short entertainment which I freely admit cannot possibly be a review of Tampa because I haven't read it yet, and therefore is "potentially off-topic". Okay, enough with the mealymouth, I'll make it simple : it's COMPLETELY off-topic. There you go, I'm trying to help here. 
 HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR NEXT NOVEL 
 When I'm three quarters through my current novel I get the urge to pick the next one. It's a horrible urge - next, next, next. O the disease of novel-reading - one ailment I hope I'm never cured of. So anyway, which one to choose out of the dozens on the groaning shelf? The one with the sexiest cover? The one with the waggly tail? No, that's how you choose which dog to buy. How about the serious one which has been sitting glowering at me for about a decade and which will make me a better person? 
 So I thought I'd approach the problem scientifically this time, and base my decision on First Lines. I mean, if I was a novelist, I'd want to spear the reader like a fish with a really strong first line. So I'm the fish, spear me. 
 Here are ten contenders, taken from the groaning shelf at random. 
 1)	Tampa by Alissa Nutting 
 I spent the night before my first day of teaching in an excited loop of hushed masturbation on my side of the mattress, never falling asleep. 
 Wow, like not sleeping for the whole night? Wouldn't you be totally zombified on your first day at the new job? Anyway, yeah, I want to know what kind of nutcase we're dealing with here, so I'm hooked. 9/10. 
 2)	Platform by Michel Houellebecq 
 Father died last year. 
 Oh that's so tiny I will allow him another sentence. 
 I don't subscribe to the theory by which we only become truly adult when our parents die; we never become truly adult. 
 Mmm, so so. I can't say I'm bothered one way or the other. 3/10. 
 3)	The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahri 
 East of the Tolly Club, after Deshapran Sashmal Road splits in two, there is a small mosque. 
 I read a book about literary devices and one chapter was about first lines of novels and the guy was saying that you really need a strong first line, obviously, and he was reeling off all these great ones, you know, Call me Fishmeal and The clocks were striking 13 and all of those. Well, it seems most novelists do not subscribe to this idea at all and are happy to write very dull first sentences. 3/10. 
 4)	The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux 
 We drove past Tiny Polski's mansion house to the main road, and then the five miles into Northampton, Father talking the whole way about savages and the awfulness of America - how it got turned into a dope-taking, door-locking, ulcerated danger-zone of rabid scavengers and criminal millionaires and moral sneaks. 
 Yes, that's more like it. I'm interested. Let's go. 7/10. 
 5)	Continental Drift by Russell Banks 
 It's not memory you need for telling this story, the sad story of Robert Raymond Dubois, the story that ends along the back streets and alleys of Miami, Florida, on a February morning in 1981... 
 Hold on there, Russell ! I finally found a full stop towards the end of page one, it's one of those clausally incontinent whoppers. But yeah, I like that. 7/10. 
 6) Burr by Gore Vidal 
 Shortly before midnight, July 1, 1833, Colonel Aaron Burr, aged seventy-seven, married Eliza Jumel, born Bowen fifty-eight years ago (more likely sixty-five but remember : she is prone to litigation!). 
 Well, this is lighthearted enough. He's trying to put me at ease - this will be history with its tie loosened. Gets its jauntiness in immediately. Nice. 8/10 
 7) A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge 
 How to explain? How to describe? Even the omniscient viewpoint quails. 
 Oh deario. This is a much-praised space-opera but is that not one of the clunkient, least appetising first lines you've ever seen? Quails? Who says quails? is this going to be a novel where they use verily and quoth? Back on the shelf. 0 out of 10. 
 8) Omensetter's Luck by William H Gass 
 Now folks today we're going to auction off Missuss Pimber's things. 
 I love this, I instantly want to read on. There's no quotation marks, this being The Gassman, a notorious modernist, so I'm expecting it to be all streamily conscious and that. 8/10. 
 9) Crystal Vision by Gilbert Sorrentino 
 I will call this drink the Flowers of Summer, the Magician says, 
 I would call a drink the Flowers of Summer too, but I hate magicians. 5/10. 
 10) Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates 
 There came Death hurtling along the Boulevard in waning sepia light. 
 Ooh, that's a bit pulpy and lurid. It's not all going to be like that is it? This is supposed to be about Marilyn Monroe, and she did die. Must be one of those stories that start at the end and then flashback (for 738 pages). 6/10. 
 So, we have a winner. Alissa, it's you, you saucy minx. 
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