3 ms·
Judge a book by its first pages
- rao-v 4mo agoThe world needs more delightful websites that do one clever thing well like this. Turns out I need to read Percival Everett!
- grimgrin 4mo agomaybe it is mostly books, but the first one it served me was a /r/aita post https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781538704448 https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781538704448
- happytoexplain 4mo agoYeah, same for me. I was confused. But click "Reveal". This is in fact a book.
- aarvin_roshin 4mo agoThe button on the homepage is hardcoded to this book, which I find extremely strange. Why not choose a random book, and why pick such a confusing quote?
- kiddico 4mo agoI believe that's a fiction/in universe reddit post
- happytoexplain 4mo agoWhen I visit a bookstore, I will look for things I recognize/want. But I also will open random books and read the first page to see if anything hooks me. I try to come away from any bookstore visit with one book I've never heard of and may have never been recommended otherwise. This is a nice recreation of that experience (sans the paper smell).
- stuxf 4mo agoexactly my thoughts too, this is a great way to digitally recreate the bookstore experience :)
- aarvin_roshin 4mo agoUnrelated to the idea, but this website strangely blocks `Alt+←` and `Alt+→` to cycle through browser history. Edit: It seems the website overrides the `←` and `→` arrow keys specifically, and using `event.preventDefault()` causes the problem. I think it's good practice to ignore keys with modifiers in such a situation.
- embedding-shape 4mo agoIt's not "blocked", the person implementing it just forgo any sort of browser history usage when creating the website/"app", and the entire thing is controlled 100% in their own JS code. I guess author only had their specific mobile use in mind when creating it? Maybe swiping for back/forward works if you view it on the phone?
- Palomides 4mo agoyou're attributing a lot of intent to the details of a site that is almost certainly 100% AI generated
- embedding-shape 3mo agoStill supposedly a human prompting stuff to happen in any case. Not to mention, I think you'd have to prompt against the model to avoid making URL routes in a 100% frontend application, leading me to believe the "missing" page navigation is intentional.
- EagleEdge 4mo agoI always follow the rule in the book "How to Read a Book": give the book a superficial reading to decide if it is worth reading deeply and carefully.
- aeon_ai 4mo agoCan’t recommend the book enough, taught me a lot of tricks
- EagleEdge 4mo agoYes. It fundamentally changed how I read a book. I go back to it every once a while and always find new things to apply every time.
- BeetleB 4mo agoWould not recommend for fiction - at least not mass market fiction. But Mortimer probably felt those were not reading, and the method would work for him :-) When I read How To Read a Book, I was quite impressed. In practice ... it's not very useful for the types of book I read. Likely better for deeper, philosophical books (including fiction of that category). For a lot of fiction books, my rule is to read the first 50 pages. If I'm not engaged, move on. Life is short. I believe Stephen King also used that heuristic. It's fine if you miss out on some great books. You're not going to get to read all of them anyway.
- GarnetFloride 4mo agoI use Mortimer's system for non-fiction works, which is where it makes the most sense. I would also use it if I was doing a really deep dive in a fiction work. For most fiction that I am reading for entertainment, the first 50ish pages will tell me if its worth finishing.
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- 4mo ago
- imglorp 4mo agoKurt Vonnegut advocated for writers to throw away the first chapter of their book. He liked to drop the reader into the thick of it immediately.
- the__alchemist 4mo agoIt's first chapters all the way down!
- TeeMassive 4mo agoSeriously. Why would "A blue Ford just parked in front of the door. Jim still hasn't truly fully woken up but he was already making breakfast..." incite me to read the book? Compare that to The Poppy War which I just discovered: "Take your clothes off. Rin blinked. What? Cheating prevention protocol."
- ofalkaed 4mo agoSecond chapter becomes the first chapter if you throw away the first chapter, should you also throw that away? I guess Zeno would approve. Vonnegut's advice and most if not all of the common advice given to aspiring writers has truth in it but it tends to be too pithy for its own good. The first chapter needs to lay the groundwork for everything that follows and this applies for everything from genre and essays to the complicated and experimental works of literary fiction. Why should the reader care? Vonnegut is ultimately pushing back against the old saw of the captivating first sentence, many aspiring writers fall into the trap of trying start their book by trying to captivate the reader at cost of laying that foundation; if I can just word this opening paragraph perfectly, the readers will be hooked. It is a fairly dishonest way to go about things. Everything the reader needs to know about what you are writing needs to be covered in that first chapter or paragraph or chapters or section or whatever metric applies to what you are writing, the trick is that you need to present it in a way that does not spoil everything to come. If you get fixated on captivating the reader with the opening, tossing the first chapter and reworking the second is decent advice, but it might be better to just rework the first. All of these pithy bits of writing advice have truth in them and have a great deal to teach you but far too many aspiring writers tend to accept them as dogma.
- 4mo ago
- scotty79 4mo agoI think the reveal button is counted as an upvote for the book because it supposedly discovered my taste and it was based on th books I revealed, but not bookmarked.
- ndarray 4mo agoIf that is true, it's bad design. The site definitely needs a dislike button too, while we're at it...
- happytoexplain 4mo agoThat makes sense. "I read some and wanted to read more" is a useful metric like an upvote (it doesn't have to mean "I know I like this" to be useful).
- sva_ 4mo agoI don't know, I think some books like for example Frank Herbert's need a couple more pages to set up the scene. Also, some of the best tv shows I watched need a couple episodes build up to get a nice payout.
- BeetleB 4mo agoI don't think the site is claiming otherwise. And as for Frank Herbert's Dune, I gave it a try. I read the first two books, and was 20% of my way through the third when I realized that "No, this whole story is not going to get good ever." Should have just stopped after a few pages of the first book :-)
- sva_ 4mo agoIt's a good thing that people have different preferences
- andrewflnr 4mo agoHa, I love Dune personally, but it definitely doesn't get better after that.
- shagie 4mo agoMy most recent read of Dune was after Foundation in order (side bit: bailed at Foundation's Edge because it got too "preachy"). One of the things that I had stumbled across was that Dune was an argument against the utopian view of Asimov and Foundation where individuals don't matter in the Seldon Plan and its played out in a galactic scale. Dune in that read is a dystopian view of the future where everything (at the galactic level) hinges upon individuals and the plot is played out on a planetary scale. Asimov was asking "can reason organize civilization?" and Herbert came back and asked "what are the dangers if you think it can?" ... So, when I revisit the large scale science fiction from the era... to me, now, it's more of a philosophy paper with a plot founded in future speculative fiction - more akin to reading Plato than Tolkien. Philosophical arguments rather than myth making and story telling that the authors were dueling in serialized pulp magazines rather than letters and treatises.
- needSomeCoffee 4mo agoClicked the link. Selected "Literary". First sample was quite good. Vaguely caught the name of the author. Closed page. Then decided to go back. Could not find the first sample which I decided I might want to read. Got just enough of the author name to get Google to find "Colson Whitehead" when I entered "Colston". The book was "Cool Machine". Went to borrow it from Sno-Isle.org. Placed a hold on the physical book. Number 51 in the hold line (all time record for my holds -- got plenty to read until its likely availability). Glad I found this site, but on my second visit did not find any "Literary" first pages that resonated. Blind luck. Good site idea though. HTH, NSC
- ndarray 4mo agoThis is basically an ad for recent books the maker likes or gets paid to promote and the selection is hot garbage
- spankibalt 4mo agoAnother day, another rotten candy apple for giggling postliterates.
- lofaszvanitt 4mo agoIf the book is boring after the 40th page then it's not for you.
- Jperalbelmont 4mo ago5th page *
- stephen_cagle 4mo agoIgnoring whether this is a good business, I feel like this is a pretty terrible way to judge a book. If it took off it would result in everyone just starting their book with a real hook, which only works for a small number of genres and only if nothing else needs to be setup before "hooking" (simple "nothing is unfamiliar" stories). I've read plenty of books on recommendation that I think are great, but they were not the kind of books that could start with a hook I think. But, the counterargument to this is if it helps people start books, then who cares if it is an effective strategy or not.
- andrewflnr 4mo agoStill better than judging by the cover. Also, it is important to know that there aren't any deal breakers in the author's style.
- spankibalt 4mo ago> But, the counterargument to this is if it helps people start books, [...]. It certainly doesn't. Not that it matters to people who love reading books, for they know judging a whole book by its first page(s), or based on some formula extracted from one of those silly self-improvement tomes, is just ridiculous (especially the latter reminiscent of "Pritchard's graph" from Dead Poets Society).
- xwowsersx 4mo agoThis is really quite lovely. I shelved a few books. Very nicely done UX. Thanks for this.
- trencedamp 3mo agoA note for OP: the creation lake first page is an intro page that starts with "praise for creation lake" and lists a lot of author endorsements. You need to fix that
- aeve890 3mo agoSpoiler alert for sequels. Happened to me with Shift (second book of the Silo trilogy).