Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea

Denton Taylor. New York.

I think the title seldom has any influence on me in a work of fiction, whether good or bad. Non-fiction, sometimes a title will remind me I wanted to learn more on that subject.
I confess that I am more influences by dust wrappers than titles in a bookstore-- I will sometimes pick up a book and look at it if it has an really really interesting dust jacket. I'm sure people will find this strikingly anti-intellectual and obtuse, but in part I am a visual person who appreciates design. In my piles of new books to be processed, it is the debut novel by Saudi Arabian Rajaa Alsanea called 'Girls of Riyadh' that caught my eye. It has a gorgeously-designed dust wrapper, so I picked it up. In seeing that the blurb claims it was a 'sensation all over the Arab world', I figured it would be worth a shot.
I saw the book at a Manhattan Barnes & Nobel, 5th Ave and 46th Street.

Also I will always buy any new novel of an author I like, even if it is poorly reviewed. This is how, in the same stack, I find new novels by Cheryl Mendelson, Rupert Thomson, J. M. Coetzee (his new work of literary crit), and Helen Oyeyemi. There is a work of non-fiction that I bought from a review; 'Indian Summer', by Alex von Tunzelmann. And two novels, also bought from reviews; 'Septembers of Shiraz' by Dalia Sofer, and 'Before', by Irini Spanidou.
I tend to look carefully at books nominated for a prize; Booker, Nobel, Pulitzer, etc. I'll usually buy some of them.