Betty by Gary Delainey and Gerry Rasmussen for October 23, 2015

I wouldn’t recommend Hemingway for a first time book reader. Instead I’d say something like Terry Pratchett or even the Harry Potter books. Or even (can’t believe I’m saying this) Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books. In other words, funny or engaging or simple.

Lee Child, John Sandford, Robert Crais, Ace Atkins, Daniel Silva and the late, great Robert B. Parker.

For a guy like Bub, anything with action in the first paragraph.

He began in Ernest……

Harry Harrison (“The Stainless Steel Rat” series) used to say that the first sentence had to grab you. If it didn’t, no one would read the book.

My mom always taught me to go until at least the 50th page (80th page if it’s a big book) to see if it’s worth it too keep going.

If I start a book, I have to finish it.

I never understood how Hemingway even got published, never mind popular. (I think he was a “man’s writer”.) Terry Pratchett, on the other hand…what a wonderful world he created! Granny Ogg, I ain’t daid, either!

I kind of agree with Betty, I was supposed to read a book in the 9th grade, I think it was the Time Traveler or something like that, anyway I couldn’t get past the first page I kept re-reading it.

Glad to see there are people here with excellent taste. ;-)

Reading means your attention span has to be more developed than just to process a sound byte…

For the first time, I am terribly disappointed in Betty. Her literary shallowness is quite out of character I think. The “first paragraph test” is a lousy way to judge a book.

I’m definitely with Bub on this one. Never could get into Hemingway. (Even if he is in ERNEST, @Ubintold!) If you want to read a good classic, you’ve got to go farther back. Dickens, for instance. Now THAT’S something you’ll never put down.

I ’d recommend Alistair Maclean or Larry Niven.

I have occasionally had to take a “running leap” into a book and been really glad I did.