Man Booker judge Colin Thubron expressed frustration with gushing book blurbs, which he says “almost blackmail” readers: “you’re either intellectually or morally incompetent if you don’t love this book or you’ve failed if you haven’t understood it.” Our own Bill Morris tackled the age old question—”To Blurb or not Blurb”—a few years ago.
Are Book Blurbs Helpful or Harmful?
Bodleian Treasures
A first edition of Don Quixote, fragments of Sappho, and a lock of Percy Shelley‘s hair all in one place: Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries.
●
●
A subject “simply too controversial for the university”
As noted on Arts & Letters Daily, Yale’s decision to shutter its Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism raises the question, “Where does scholarship end and advocacy begin?”
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Bright Eyes
After the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska died fighting in the trenches, Ezra Pound wrote a book about his work, inspiring a wave of interest that brought the sculptor to prominence. The book came out in 1916, a year after Gaudier-Brzeska’s death, and kicked off a succession of great books that tackle his sculptures. Yasmine Seale writes about their legacy in the LRB.
●
●
Amazon in Stores
In an interesting turn of events, Amazon has opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Seattle: Amazon Books. Marketing information from the company’s website will help decide how to stock its shelves. Our own Michael Bourne announces that Amazon has purchased the English language.
Howling Against Censorship
A San Francisco prisoner wanted to read werewolf erotica so badly that he took it to state court. The case has brought up problems with prison censorship and calls to mind Avi Steinberg’s memoir, Running the Books: Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian (here’s our review.)
●
●
I don’t really “mind” blurbs, unless the publisher thinks they’re more important than telling me what the book’s about. Nothing worse than flipping the book over to see what it’s about and ONLY finding what other people think of the book–except having 2-3 pages’ worth in the front of the book, to boot (again without the typical 2-3 paragraph teaser-excerpt).