I read my first Hemingway short story in high school. In college I read & studied quite a number of his works--I majored in Modern English Lit. After college, I read the balance of his works including the complete letters exchanged by Hemingway & F. Scott Fitzgerald. I flew to Paris one time and sat in a hotel room and read "Islands In The Stream." I spent some time in Kenya & actually met a pretty close friend of Hemingway's who shared some stories about their adventures. His name was Dan Trench & he lived South of Mombasa on Diani Beach.
Suffice it to say, I have a nodding acquaintance with Ernest Hemingway. His search for "the perfect sentence" & his tight journalistic style are rewarding to read. I can assert that the reader always feels rewarded after reading a passage, putting a "mark" in the book and thinking about what he has just read.
The vignette found on page 170 (between "Big Two Hearted River" parts one & two) is perfect Hemingway!
If a person found himself with time to read only one book, this would be a great choice.