Blurb

A blurb is a short, promotional description of a book, film, or other work. Quotes I have blurbed so many books that they fill a bookcase in my apartment. A. J. Jacobs: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/books/review/a-j-jacobs-on-his-blurbing-problem.html How to Blurb and Blurb and Blurb 27 July 2012 New York Times Let’s be clear: blurbs are not a distinguished genre. In 1936 George Orwell described them as “disgusting tripe,” quoting a particularly odious example from the Sunday Times: “If you can read this book and not shriek with delight, your soul is dead.” He admitted the impossibility of banning reviews, and proposed instead the adoption of a system for grading novels according to classes, “perhaps quite a rigid one,” to assist hapless readers in choosing among countless life-changing masterpieces. More recently Camille Paglia called for an end to the “corrupt practice of advance blurbs,” plagued by “shameless cronyism and grotesque hyperbole.” Even Stephen King, a staunch supporter of blurbs, winces at their “hyperbolic ecstasies” and calls for sincerity on the part of blurbers. Alan Levinovitz: http://www.themillions.com/2012/02/i-greet-you-in-the-middle-of-a-great-career-a-brief-history-of-blurbs.html A Brief History of the Blurb 1 February 2012 The Millions (the millions.com) Many writers who have hit the best-seller lists or won major awards have a strict policy of not writing blurbs. Bill Morris: http://www.themillions.com/2011/02/to-blurb-or-not-to-blurb.html The Millions (themillions.com) To Blurb or Not to Blurb? 15 February 2011 In 2002, I’d finally finished my own decade-long basic science project, and I was getting ready to publish my book A New Kind of Science. In recognition of his early support, I’d mentioned Murray in my long list of acknowledgements in the book, and I thought I’d reach out to him and see if he’d like to write a back-cover blurb. (In the end, Steve Jobs convinced me not to have any back-cover blurbs: “Isaac Newton didn’t have blurbs on the Principia; nor should you on your book”.) Stephen Wolfram: Remembering Murray Gell-Mann (1929–2019), Inventor of Quarks 30 May 2019 Stephen Wolfram Blog (blog.stephenwolfram.com) https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/05/remembering-murray-gell-mann-1929-2019-inventor-of-quarks/ External links Blurb blurb Category:Literature