Open inspector in Chrome,
find the #generated div,
deactivate text-align: justify.
Much better.
Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
71–80 of 126 posts
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
In fairness, wasn't this also true for radio? I recall quite a number of songs where the full version (from a CD or similar) had an intro that I'd never hear on the radio.
Pink Floyd, for one, released a couple of songs with very quiet intros. If you played the album versions people would think you were broadcasting dead air. Can’t have that. So just jump to the first sound over a certain decibel, and chop out anything longer than a second later in the song. Which makes that Alannis Morisette song where she’s making a point about people not being able to handle silence pretty weird. Th…
People have short attention spans. Theaters had to post warnings for the last Star Wars film that it had several intentional seconds of silence, because people thought the movie must be broken[0].
https://variety.com/2017/film/news/star-wars-the-last-jedi-a...
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#73It's funny that most of these that I read start off with a very annoying, cliched "writer" tone.
I've always had the impression that authors just can't help buy try to prove how clever they are in the first paragraph at the expense of making the story compelling. It's like everyone has delusions that the book they're writing is going to be the next Moby Dick, so that beginning must be literary dammit.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pink Floyd, for one, released a couple of songs with very quiet intros. If you played the album versions people would think you were broadcasting dead air. Can’t have that. So just jump to the first sound over a certain decibel, and chop out anything longer than a second later in the song. Which makes that Alannis Morisette song where she’s making a point about people not being able to handle silence pretty weird. Th…
People have short attention spans. Theaters had to post warnings for the last Star Wars film that it had several intentional seconds of silence, because people thought the movie must be broken[0]. https://variety.com/2017/film/news/star-wars-the-last-jedi-a...
Crews-Offerman in 2020, with Offerman spearheading a War on Boredom that is just him insisting everybody should grow the fuck up and be able to sit quietly for at least 10 seconds at a time.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#75I'm currently hooked to this free book "Stories on the Go: 101 Very Short Stories by 101 Authors" https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Go-Very-Short-Authors-ebook/d... Each story is <1000 words (5-10mins), from a distinct author, and if you like the writing style, you can buy more books from the author.
Reminds me of "100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories" edited by Asimov. The format works really well for hard sci-fi, gets straight to the point. Some of them have stuck with me for decades.
I've looked up "Microcosmic God" several times because I can't seem to remember the title. But the story was particularly memorable. It wasn't in this Asimov anthology but it was published in the SF Hall of Fame.
A quick search reveals that someone has a copy of the text freely (but perhaps not legitimately) available.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#76I would follow Marshall MacLuhan's advice. Open a book on page 69, read it. If you like what you read, buy it.
Also: "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." -- Ford Madox Ford
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#77Now this is a good idea!
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#78Tindr for books?
Ooooh: Bindr. I like it.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#79It's interesting to think what might happen if something like this became really popular. I'd imagine many novels might start adding super oddball stuff in the first page, just to stand out from the crowd and pique peoples' curiosity. Kind of the literary equivalent to clickbait headlines.
My wife, who runs a book review blog[1] in her spare time, has a popular feature called "First Line Friday" where she features the first line of a book from her collection or her co-contributors', as a way to pique interest in the book among her followers. I sent her the link to this service just now and she loved it. She said it will be a great source for first lines for books she doesn't have but wants to feature.
Re: Read first pages of novels, and reveal the author and title if you're hooked
#80How is this done? Where do you get the books and their first pages? I am wondering if Amazon API gives book preview also.
It's curated from author/publisher submissions, link is top center: