So, yesterday I was going to advise against buying anything with pink (or lavender) covers, but then remembered Marisa Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics which has a hideous pink dust jacket with roses that would be better off adorning a Victorian gardening journal or a romance (but the kind with no sex). I am only saying this because I liked the book itself, but back when I bought it, I actually thought about taking the dust jacket off and tossing it in the paper bin. I decided not to, because it is part of the book, and so I wasn’t able to destroy it. Not that I don’t like roses, but the dust jacket looks as though it had been designed by Barbara Cartland’s ghost on drugs.

Also I own A House with Four Rooms by Rumer Godden, the cover of which is pinkish, but with much more nourishing contents than the one I read last weekend.

Here is the quote regarding the title of this autobiography:

There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person. 

All right, never say never, even to pink dust jackets, but do approach with caution if you are as allergic to fluffy romances as I am!