There are certain things that will automatically make me want to at least pick up a book. Kind of the same way I will always order creme brulee if it’s on the menu. Here are a few:

• It has to do with the geeky things I love: comics, LARP, fandom (see: Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern and the recent Geektastic collection)
• It appears to make math cool in some way (bonus points if it involves geometry!) (see: The Midnighters series by Scott Westerfeld)
• It involves whales or dolphins (see: Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane)
• It involves ancient Egypt (see: Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos by R. L. Lafevers)
• Any sort of Jane Austen reference (see: Scones and Sensibility by Lindsay Eland)

What about you guys? What elements will make you pick up a book automatically?

I am so eager to read Geektastic that I even went and entered an online contest to get a copy since my library does not have it and I am on a restricted book-buying budget at present (I will admit that entering the contest is sort of cheating since the restriction is less about money and more about the ridiculous size of my to-read pile). If any of you are interested, there are actually two contests going on now: one at Bookluver-Carol’s Review Site and one at Carrie’s YA Bookshelf (both very fine sources for book reviews, by the way).

And because I have no better place to put this, check out this nifty artwork of a Steampunk Dragon from one of my daily reads, the Children’s/Fantasy Illustrations blog (this is another of my recent favorites from the same site; I love how the falling leaves kind of morph into fairies in my mind…).