November 29, 2006
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The 69 Test
Want a quick-and-dirty measure of a book’s quality? Open it to page 69 and see what you find. (Another variation is the page 99 rule but, come on.)
I like how John Freeman at the National Book Critics’ Circle blog puts it:
So that’s what I began doing from time to time when the first page of a galley sunk into that logey, comfortable, throat-clearing prologue rhythm — I’d flip to page 99 and see what I found.
Note to self: Never write anything “logey.”
Posted November 29, 2006 at 4:49 | Comments (14) | Permasnark
File under: Books, Writing & Such, Briefly Noted
File under: Books, Writing & Such, Briefly Noted
Comments
I love this! just went through my entire bookshelf looking at all the page 69's. maybe it's just me, but I find that doing this often yields a much more accurate snapshot of my feelings for the book. it's like, when you go on holiday, if it's sunny for most of it and then drizzles nastily for the last two days, you generally have a worse overall impression of your holiday than if it happens the other way around (rain first, then sun). it's like that, I feel, with books. and so the page 69 thing gets you right in the middle of your holiday, which makes you much more objectively honest.
so for example, a book I always think I adore -- 'A Handful of Dust' by evelyn waugh -- often I forget how skeletal much of it is. same with sartre's 'Nausea'. but I couldn't stop myself reading on from the page 69s of 'Catcher in the Rye', 'A Confederacy of Dunces', 'Tales from a Thousand and One Nights' (three of my genuinely all-time favourite books).
and fittingly, page 69 on my copy of 'The Little Prince' is a beautiful picture.
Would you believe the only book I have on my desk right now is 'Great Chess Victories and Defeats'? Lame. Although... 'Andersson's doubling rooks on the c-file led him nowhere, because the White Knight at c3 effectively blocked any infiltration.'
I'll have to look up some more when I get home.
I love the fact that the Little Prince opens up to a picture! What a great book.
This is pretty nice. A good variation on the "if a book isn't good by page 50, put it down" school of thought.
It reminds me of reading Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson. I used to keep that book lying around my house years after I had finished it just to open to random pages. It always felt fun and comforting to know where I was and know that at any moment, I was to be surprised with some labyrinthine passage about the main character's awesome car, the history of California to be, or Babylonian creation myths....
I'm traveling now, does anyone have a copy and know what is on page 69?
Neal Stephenson will probably fail this test, as he takes a good 300-400 pages to really get going.
This is a pretty good indicator for the closest book I have at hand, though, the Rhino Book:
Huh, I didn't know that, actually. Pretty cool.
Bonus points for guessing which operator the above paragraph refers to.
Oh, I didn't even read the above comments before posting that. Snow Crash is obviously an exception to my above generalization, since it's only about that long anyhow. :-P Will post page 69 when I get home, if I remember ...
Snow Crash is my all time favorite example of the 50 pages or bust idea. I routinely tell people that if they don't like Snow Crash after the first chapter, they might not have a soul.....
....
Of course, I say the same things about Zelda games.
You know, I actually lost Snow Crash a little less than 30 or 40 pages in. It was my sister's copy and I was totally mortified about it, and I think the embarrassment was why I never picked it up again. . .I remember liking it until that point. Stupid BART.
I was into Snow Crash IMMEDIATELY. The passage introducing "the deliverator" is one of the best pieces of sci-fi writing ever.
I just finished "Friday Night Lights". The book is better than the movie. From page 69:
gut check. Do you really want to play football? Can you really come back from it?
It meant adjusting to a knee brace. It meant not flinching an inch when the knee was hit full-speed by a helmet, not succumbing to the perpetual fear of pain, not running with the slightest tentativeness... And it meant doing all these things at the age of eighteen.
...
If Permian was to go to State, they would have to perform in ways that no one had ever imagined, rise to heights beyond even the expectations of the fans. But no one would have to have a greater year, be more superb, than Mike Winchell at quarterback.
Now, more than ever, it was up to him.
This is rapidly becoming a contender for my favorite comment thread ever.
Sure sure, of course hyperkinetic Snow Crash shines on page 69... what about something a little more intimidating? Something a little more... MOBY DICK?
The Whale, page 69:
Sold!
P.S. Nori, I have no idea what in the world that operator could be. And as much as I don't want to encourage the practice of bringing *programming reference books* into this sort of discussion, I am sort of dying to know what it is.
As promised:
Come to think of it, I plant-sat for a friend who had named his plant Hiroaki. Yes, he was a geek.
Heh. Glad you asked -- it's &&. :)
How exactly do you go about "plant sitting"? Sounds like a sweet job to me. I mean, unless it's Audrey II. Then it might suck. Come to think of it, that might be like a rite of passage amongst good friends. You might get a T-Shirt.
"I fed this ravenous, man eating plant, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt and about 5 bucks."
The last three books I've been reading:
-- The Year of Magical Thinking, page 69
-- No god but God, page 69
-- American Pastoral, page 69
Actually, before No god but God, I read The Areas of My Expertise, which is technically optimized for flipping to a random page and happening on something extraordinary. (Somewhat less optimized for reading cover-to-cover in the typical style.) Page 69, which opens the chapter "What you did not know about the past," contains a lycanthropic transformation timetable.