Pet Book Hates #3: Blurbs, Or Rather The Lack Of

When you pick up an attractive looking paperback in the bookshop only to turn it over and find, instead of a blurb, a list of quotes from various wanky publications. Somewhere within these quotes is some vague hint at what the book might be about but I can't be arsed to find it if the publisher can't be arsed to write a blurb.

I have no problem with quotes. They are very welcome endorsements, especially if they come from people whose taste I respect, but they are no substitute for a neat little summary of the books contents.

It happens quite a bit. I think it is shocking. There are enough barriers between readers and good books as it is without getting all enigmatic and highbrow. Tell me what the book is about, not what other people think about it, and then I might want to buy it. Dont, and I won't.

Comments

[Robbie]

I totally get this, and I agree that blurb should say what you say it should say. I don't read blurb, though, because I can't bear bits of story to be given away, and they too often are. Even an early set-up which if you don't know is a set-up loses its force if you know it's the set-up. So I also can't read reviews of fiction. I squint at review pages to get an impressionistic sense of whether people liked a book, or get recommendations, and etc., and then I read the book or not, and the reviews afterwards. (As I say, I get that no one else thinks like this; I can't watch previews in cinemas, either.)

[Chris Nichol]

What's worse is blurbs that don't make sense. I picked up 'Click' by Bill Tancer the other day and couldn't make sense of the blurb at all.

See the 1st 3 lines after 'From the Back Cover' on Amazon. You need to click on 'See All Product Description' first.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007277830?ie=UTF8&tag=publilore-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0007277830

What are they on about? Am I being thick? It wouldn't be the 1st time.

[Boggle]

Curiously you spend a lot of time writing about what you think of books/music, is this ironic?

[Scott Pack]

No irony at all Boggle. Not entirely sure where you are coming from.

I am always interested to hear what people have to say about a book, I am just asking that publishers also include a blurb. No blurb at all seems daft to me.

[Catherine]

I like to see a few quotes but also a good blurb. Sometimes there is a blurb on the frst prelim below a pen pic of the author, but increasingly even the first prelim , or the first 2 or 3 prelim pages, are taken up with quote after quote, most of which are fragments of sentences, and out of context give the bemused reader no chance of working out what the book is about.

[Paul S]

I hate just a back page of 'praise' too Scott but I don't like writing blurb much either. I will often read a book and then turn to the review quotes to see if I agree with them...

[John Self]

I think for this to work, publishers would have to become a lot more adept at writing a blurb without giving away half - or more - of the story. I agree with Robbie's comments above. In contrast to Scott, I'd rather have quotes of praise and no blurb - I'm usually more interested in what claims people have made for the book (and how that might fit in with what I'm interested in reading) than with the subject matter - as the latter is such a personal thing that one could easily be put off a perfect-for-you book just because it sounds as though it might be about something you wouldn't normally be interested in.

[David Roche]

But what a great T shirt