When I don’t know a writer, when the name means nothing, when I have no recommendation to go on, when the book is simply there in a shop making its case with a cover and a spine, I open it to page 61.
Not page one, where every writer is on their best behaviour; and not the middle, which requires context. Page 61 is arbitrary, which is the point. The writer doesn’t know you’re coming. Whatever is happening on that page is happening because the book requires it, not because anyone is trying to sell you anything. A single page is enough. You can hear the prose, feel whether the sentences have weight or are merely pushing you toward the next one, tell whether the writer is thinking or performing. You can sense in a paragraph whether this is someone you might want to spend days with; because that is what buying a book is: an offer of days.
I cannot remember where I picked up the habit. It has no authority behind it and I do not recommend it as a system; what I will say is that it has not failed me yet. The books I have bought on the strength of a single page have almost all earned their place on the shelf; and the books I put down after page 61 I have never regretted leaving.
The test is not for quality. Plenty of good books would fail it: books whose virtues are structural, or cumulative, or slow to emerge. What it tests for is something closer to companionship. Can I live in this prose? Is this a voice I want to bring home?
I do this with page 90! It works quite well but not nearly as well as reading primarily based on trusted recommendations
Page 61 is reserved for those unknowns that leap to attention while browsing a bookshop.