'A hugely accomplished novel.'

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This is just a thread for appreciating the hyperbole that goes on when critics' blurbs get chosen for book jackets. This one is from 'The Fortress of Solitude.'

― 57 7th (calstars), Friday, 3 September 2004 12:42 (twenty-one years ago)

'comparable to Tolkien at his best'

― Ray, Friday, 3 September 2004 13:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Not a critic's blurb, but rather one of those celebrity-quotes...
From some airport thriller:
"The guy I read" - Tom Clancy

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Friday, 3 September 2004 14:07 (twenty-one years ago)

From Douglas Adams Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul:

"Shorter than War & Peace"

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Friday, 3 September 2004 16:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Amongst the adjectives used in a blurb to describe Gravity's Rainbow was the word "boring". That was the word that convinced me to buy the book, when I was, what, 19?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 3 September 2004 16:54 (twenty-one years ago)

damn, and I just brought Underworld back to the library; it was covered in these!

I remember one: "Masterpieces teach you how to read them.."

― derrick (derrick), Friday, 3 September 2004 16:58 (twenty-one years ago)

An old friend of mine used to pick up anything that was compared to Catcher In The Rye. I think anything compared to LOTR is to be avoided, though I imagine there are exceptions.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 3 September 2004 21:03 (twenty-one years ago)

New Penguin Classics edition of the Bros Karamazov has a blurb on Dostoyevsky by Joyce Carol Oates

― sandy mc, Saturday, 4 September 2004 10:53 (twenty-one years ago)

three weeks pass...

Can anyone explain to me the longevity of the phrase "a literary tour de force"?

― Hurting, Monday, 27 September 2004 02:25 (twenty-one years ago)

"'comparable to Tolkien at his best'"

oh christ isn't that about the chronicles of thomas covenant?

correct, in essence, given that you can actually compare anything to anything else. more accurate, possibly, would have been the quote 'compares very very badly indeed to tolkien at his best'.

― darragh.mac (darragh.mac), Monday, 27 September 2004 03:29 (twenty-one years ago)

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