Our writing prompts for last Saturday’s meeting of Churchill Writers featured Papa Hemingway’s first successful novel, ‘The Sun Also Rises’, published by Charles Scribner & Sons in 1926. Hemingway famously stripped his writing to the journalistic bone but the quotations below (chosen at random, by letting the book fall open) show how he didn’t throw out his narrative skills. He was adept at suspense, surprise, economic description and writing slant. Let these take you where they will – happy writing!

At noon of Sunday, the 6^th of July, the fiesta exploded. There is no other way to describe it.

When I woke in the morning I went to the window and looked out. It had cleared and there were no clouds on the mountains.

As a matter of fact, supper was a pleasant meal. Brett wore a black, sleeveless evening dress. She looked quite beautiful. Mike acted as though nothing had happened.

Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. (The novel’s first line.)

We drove out along the coast road. There was the green of the headlands, the white, red-roofed villas, patches of forest, and the ocean very blue with the tide out and the water curling far out along the beach.

A 1^st edition is selling today online for around £500K.