Blurbs and Blurbsters of Yore

Here, surely, is the best and most complete biography of Dickens in any language, a warm and scholarly reassessment of one the few absolute geniuses in the history of the novel. It must be read by Dickensians; it should be read by all lovers of sound and exciting biography.

—CLIFTON FADIMAN, critic

Preferably off of an old dusty allergy-inducing library copy like this was, the more moldy and silverfishy the better.

I have the feeling this will be a slow-building thread, but with multiple crescendos.

Blurbs for the book Mutant Message from Down Under, Marlo Morgan:

"A powerful message for all of us. I was hypnotized by the simple truths and spiritual lessons. Read it and tell everyone you know to do the same." --Wayne Dyer

"A powerful book. A beautiful tale of a woman's mystical journey."
--Marianne Williamson

"I greet you at the beginning of a great career."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, printed on the spine of the second edition of Leaves of Grass

The word "magisterial" needs to be banned from all history and biography blurbs

"This guy's good! - Mickey Spillane, on the back cover of my old edition of Dark Knight Returns.

Disconcerted and enchanted, the reader follows the narrator of ________ through a midsummer's night in which two tales of seduction, separated by more than two hundred years, interweave and oscillate between the sublime and the comic. Underlying this libertine fantasy is a profound meditation on contemporary life: about the secret bond between slowness and memory, about the connection between our era's desire to forget and the way we have given ourselves over to the demon of speed. And about "dancers" possessed by the passion to be seen, for whom life is merely a perpetual show emptied of every intimacy and every joy.

i too oscillate between the sublime and the comic

The word "magisterial" needs to be banned from all history and biography blurbs

― jmm, Sunday, October 8, 2023 3:48 PM (three weeks ago)

Meditation and Wise are the two I see most often. I'm confounded how sometimes even really good writers will do the most stereotypical blurbs, it's like they are written under very specific rules imposed by the publisher and they end up sounding like bullshit