Does what it says on the cover
June 11, 2017 8:38 PM   Subscribe

recommendmeabook.com shows you the first page of a book. If you're curious, you can click to find out what it is.
posted by gwint (31 comments total) 50 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is fun!

First page is a single paragraph, much of which is devoted to slavishly describing how disgusting a fat person is. NEXT.

"Today was the worst day of Julia's life..." NEXT

"...Today you're all going to kill each other." NEXT

Something about a Purple Cow that involves innovating instead of marketing. NEXT

I'm intensely curious about what these books are, despite being completely uninterested in reading them. But it seems like it violates the rules of the game to both find out what the book is and loudly dismiss it in my mind, so I am resisting the urge. I am very proud of myself for that. Usually my curiosity is not that easily ignored.

It doesn't seem like it has any kind of learning built in where it determines what I might like based on what I indicate interest in, though, so perhaps it doesn't matter if I peek?
posted by jacquilynne at 8:55 PM on June 11, 2017


Ooh, also, sometimes it throws up books you recognize and you can pretend it's a game rather than a recommendation engine and feel extra smart as you say to yourself "Self, this is Kafka!" or "Come on, everyone is going to instantly know this is A Clockwork Orange. Droogs is just too memorable of a word."
posted by jacquilynne at 9:04 PM on June 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


I went through a few of these and my main thought was, is the joke that these are purported first pages of novels produced by an algorithm and if I click "reveal title" it'll say "fooled by a machine, sucker?"

But then I got to Mrs. Dalloway so I guess the others were real too?
posted by escabeche at 9:39 PM on June 11, 2017


First selection started with:

"I'm pretty much fucked.
That's my considered opinion.
Fucked."

I recognized that one right off. The next nine though I not only didn't recognize, I didn't care to. So, 1/10? Not a bad ratio.
posted by happyroach at 9:43 PM on June 11, 2017


And down the rabbit hole I go....
posted by Toddles at 9:53 PM on June 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


I feel good that fantasy that seemed interesting turned out to be a Neil Gaiman book I haven't read. It would be really neat if it could learn what books people like in groupings, so that it could actually recommend them.
posted by Margalo Epps at 9:54 PM on June 11, 2017


The one that most instantly grabbed me turned out to be The Handmaid's Tale, which I've been meaning to read for years, so I guess I should really get on that.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:02 PM on June 11, 2017 [2 favorites]


I never knew there were so many books about rich boring collage students.
posted by solarion at 10:07 PM on June 11, 2017 [11 favorites]


There was one that was clearly a crime novel and wasn't badly written, so I clicked through, and it turns out to be book one in a humorous mystery series called The Country Club Murders. Yeah, no. I don't think I can do that.

Anyway, this is strangely addictive. Also, there is some terrible writing out there.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:29 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


recommendmeabook.com shows you the first page of a book. And then the murders began.
posted by oulipian at 4:18 AM on June 12, 2017 [14 favorites]


Nice find! This is how I pick a book from the bookstore in the airport. Found several gems that way!
posted by yoga at 4:40 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


I got Fahrenheit 451 first off the bat, so I win I guess
posted by yhbc at 4:58 AM on June 12, 2017


My first one was about some guy named Gregor Samsa.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 5:22 AM on June 12, 2017


First recommendation: War & Peace. Closed site, nobody has time for that.
posted by Pendragon at 6:11 AM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


"I'm pretty much fucked.
That's my considered opinion.
Fucked."

I recognized that one right off.


You've been reading my diary?
posted by metaBugs at 7:07 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


This is (one of) the most wonderful thing(s) I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, I need this.
posted by DMelanogaster at 7:10 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


"Today was the worst day of Julia's life..." NEXT


Huh, that was the first one, after series of openings about white male college professors having some sort of midlife crisis and such, that I found interesting enough to see what it was.
posted by signal at 7:31 AM on June 12, 2017


“Who is John Galt?”

Close window.
posted by something something at 7:58 AM on June 12, 2017 [3 favorites]


first try: "The Selfish Gene"

second: Jacques Prevert poetry book. I remember there were some teachers in school who really seemed to think we'd relate to this guy's poetry! Which is pretty good I guess.

third: some YA crap
posted by thelonius at 8:09 AM on June 12, 2017


"Today was the worst day of Julia's life..." NEXT

that was the "YA Crap" I mentioned......I wonder how many books they use? If people are already reporting getting the same ones, maybe not that many
posted by thelonius at 8:18 AM on June 12, 2017


"Today was the worst day of Julia's life..." NEXT


Huh, that was the first one, after series of openings about white male college professors having some sort of midlife crisis and such, that I found interesting enough to see what it was.


That struck me as an opening so cliche and trite that it made "It was a dark and stormy night" seem positively original.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:51 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


You can click on the covers link to see all the covers on one page. Assuming that represents the full list of books, it appears to be about 300, which, yeah, pretty small sample, turns out. Fun exercise though.
posted by gwint at 8:54 AM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


And then the murders began...
posted by AJaffe at 8:58 AM on June 12, 2017


....after series of openings about white male college professors having some sort of midlife crisis and such

I don't actually see many books like that in the view of all the covers. Maybe The Divine Comedy?
posted by thelonius at 10:27 AM on June 12, 2017


....and, looking back to discover what variety of ass I have made of myself by describing some beloved classic as "YA crap", I see it was:

Eternal Flame: A Rose of Anzio Story, by Alexa Kang
posted by thelonius at 10:37 AM on June 12, 2017


I got that one, too, and I now have a fantasy that this entire project is a goofy marketing device for Eternal Flame: A Rose of Anzio Story, which appears to be a self-published romance novel. People will use this because it's fun, and then occasionally they'll stumble onto her random e-book and maybe buy it. If so, I am impressed.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:44 AM on June 12, 2017 [4 favorites]


Wow, thank you for posting this! I have so much trouble deciding what books to read, and this is going to be a great help.
posted by meese at 11:43 AM on June 12, 2017


I did not expect to instantly recognize To The Lighthouse, twenty years after the [required] reading.
posted by the_blizz at 12:07 PM on June 12, 2017


I quite like this - seems to be a much better way of choosing books than looking at a dazzling array of covers with pronoun-laden/Adjective Noun titles that all start to blur into each other after a while. (Sometimes I go into Waterstones just to count the books which have a woman in white facing backwards, or a mid-century Parisian street scene, or a soft-focus cornfield with a girl running through it on the cover, before buying a book whose title and premise I'm already familiar with.)

That said, I'm having more fun right now clicking "Next Book" and seeing if it's something I've already read. So far I've got Anna Karenina, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Catcher in the Rye.

(And yes, within 20 books I got the Rose of Anzio story, which I'm... not exactly driven to read, shall we say.)
posted by Rissa at 2:59 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't think the site was created by Eternal Flame's author, but it's clearly not in there by chance or because of the book's amazing literary merits. The site offers "paid placement," as a result of which:

Your book will be placed at the front of the queue and displayed to all visitors amongst the first few generated pages. This guarantees that thousands of visitors will read the opening lines of your book.


Source: http://www.recommendmeabook.com/addyourbook
posted by phoenixy at 10:06 PM on June 12, 2017 [1 favorite]


That certainly explains the Literary Classic, Literary Classic, Literary Classic, Random shitty self-published novel, Literary Classic thing the site has going on.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:24 PM on June 12, 2017 [2 favorites]


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