Don’t judge a book by it’s Cover.. Literally!

It’s funny how I got a taste of the well-known phrase ‘Don’t Judge a Book by it’s Cover‘.. in it’s literal sense; rather than what it actually has to convey about not assuming a person’s capabilities from his initial outwardly impressions.

So thanks to the sudden addiction towards going haywire in a bookstore to dig out books of any random genre, and dragging them home to archive them with the rest, I was at it again last month when I came across this huge paradise of books, branded as Landmark at the Infinity Mall in Mumbai. I came across Chetan Bhagat‘s recent release, ‘The 3 mistakes of my Life‘; and from all the launch parties and hype for the book, the reviews seeming pretty convincing to run out and grab a copy, I thought of having a go at this young Indian author’s novels; for a change from all the Enid Blyton fictions and autobiographies of random Indian personalities.

The first copy of the book that I caught hold of, the only one I could find at that shelf, looked pretty enough, with this unique fresh odour that released upon flipping the pages. But out of my concern towards the ‘prettiness’, I dropped back the book since there was this glue’ish sort of little spot on the binded edge. Towards the other shelves I found a couple of more copies of the same, and yet again I was more particular towards the cover rather than what’s inside; I finally agreed on the 3rd copy that I caught hold of, and shoved it to the cart.

Even after more than 3 weeks of reading at snail-speed, I never realised those blank pages which I noticed earlier, were not extras, but were indeed ‘missing‘ pages off the book. This came to light when my mom jumped in the quest to finish the book, having completed the entire book in just a couple of days; as compared to me still lagging behind at 2/3rd of the book still pending.

Upon proceeding towards Chapter 9, quite far ahead of me, she discovered there were around 16 pages missing from the 9th to the 11th Chapter in an alternate sequence. Yes! That’s when I realised I should have probably accepted the first copy back at the store then and there without wandering around for a ‘prettier’ one. My mom however finished off the book ignoring the missing blocks in the story.

Now the only solution is to either scan off the missing pages from a friend’s copy (no use since no one’s got any yet), or leech the ebook version off the web and print out the pages. Still hunting down for the latter.. no results yet. =(

I guess I could call this one of my mistakes in life? Let’s see the other 2 come along the way until I get around reading to the end.