Have you heard of the “Paperback Game”? (Or as I like to call it, “Book By Its Cover.”) Liz taught it to us on Sunday, having read about it in the NYT.
The rules are similar to Balderdash. One person reads the back of a book aloud and then everyone writes what they think the opening line might be. Then the first person reads all the entries as well as the actual opening line, and people guess which they think is correct. You get points if you guess correctly and if others pick your opening line.
The NYT says the Clintons first played it on Martha’s Vineyard with Jackie O. Well la-ti-da. They play it with the kind of trashy paperbacks you might find at a beach house. We played it with a rather more high-brow selection (the kind of books you might find in a Manhattan apartment, perhaps) and it worked just as well. We had a ball, and only the late hour broke up the party.
I knew this already, but we really have some excellent writers in the group. I’d love to read all their novels! (Now if we could just get past the first sentence….)
Pretty good idea. Think I’ll have to try this sometime.
