We recently offered a look at the odd history of the book blurb here at The Millions. Now the New York Times is looking at this peculiar custom, inviting four contributors to discuss their merits and pitfalls. Among them is our own Bill Morris, who revisits his 2011 essay “To Blurb Or Not To Blurb” about the dilemma he faced when asked to blurb a friend’s book.
Debating the Book Blurb
The Game is the Game
“The appropriate term for what both [David Foster] Wallace and [Roger] Federer did, however, perhaps isn’t synthesis; more apt would be the Hegelian term, aufheben, which can mean a great many things – to lift up, to abolish, to cancel, to suspend, to sublate, to preserve, to transcend – all at once, where two existing terms are abolished, sublated, transcended by way of the orchestration of a collision between them, out of which a new term emerges, which then itself goes in search of a partner with which to collide.” A really fantastic review of David Foster Wallace’s String Theory from 3:AM Magazine.
Curiosities: Thug, Libidinal, Linoleum, Limn
The Tournament of Books rolls along with a few first round upsets (Congratulations, Sarvas!), but the highlight thus far might be a glimpse of Junot Díaz’s one-of-kind victor’s shirt from last year.Meanwhile, Stop Smiling offers up a Díaz interview.John Leonard’s son compiles a concordance to his father’s vigorous criticism, in which “thug,” “libidinal,” and “linoleum” make the top 10.The breathless inventorying of Roberto Bolaño’s posthumous papers continues.Our friend Eliza Barclay reports from the Andes, finding little cause for optimism.Victor Lavalle becomes the most recent essayist spurred to eloquence by the Obama inauguration.Also from the Atlantic, Hitchens and Marx: On again?James Wood and Claire Messud get grilled – sort of – by The Harvard Crimson: he’s the chef, she does laundry.The people who put William Kristol on payroll show themselves capable of good judgment. Congratulations, Ross Douthat!Wikipedia find of the week: beghilos (aka calculator spelling)Audrey Niffeneger is not feeling the recession. The NYT says $5 mil for The Time Traveler’s Wife follow-up.NPR explores the doodles of powerful people.CAAF spends some time with the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus and pauses on “limn.”Clay Shirky elucidates, perhaps better than most media pundits have, why newspapers need to be “thinking the unthinkable.”
●
●
O’Brien’s Bridge
If the Dublin City Council doesn’t name their newest bridge after Flann O’Brien, writes Frank McNally, then perhaps the author’s memorial should be built in Paris, Zurich, Trieste, or “any of the other great European cities to which he didn’t emigrate.”
Sustainable Olympics
Year in Reading alumna Nell Zink writes on the future of global sport. As she puts it, “Under my plan for reform, the Olympics will no longer be assigned a fixed geographic location.”
Early Dust Jackets!
●
●
Recommended Reading: Outkast Edition
Recommended Reading: Bomani Jones’s essay on Outkast’s ATLiens, his first car, and the way things from your past just seem different as the years go by.
●
●