Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Blurbs, Writing Tips, Literary Folklore and Publishing Secrets

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The authors Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Weiner have been duking it out over the issue of seriousness since 2010, with Weiner criticising the ‘Franzenfrenzy’ that greeted the publication of his novel Freedom. In her eyes, women writing about domestic situations were seen as limited in their appeal, but when Franzen ‘writes a book about a family … we are told this is a book about America’. You wouldn't think you could get a whole book from just talking about blurbs, but actually they make for really interesting discussion. I enjoyed this, though I am not usually a big non-fiction fan. Being about books though helped with that & I enjoyed all the interesting facts and snippets of blurbs and author thoughts about blurbs, publishing insights and funny examples. Eileen M Hunt: Feminism vs Big Brother - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder; Julia by Sandra Newman A delight… She is a delightful and amusing guide to the subject. One for the book lover in your life.’ So is there such a thing as blurbing karma? Let's see. Ellis, one of my favourite writers, was memorably blurbed for his first novel Less Than Zero by Richard Price, who found it "filled with a languid comic terror". Price, of course, has been blurbed for his novels: for instance, Dennis Lehane blurbed him as "the greatest writer of dialogue, living or dead, this country has ever produced". I love that unnecessary, yet resounding, "living or dead".

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: The A-Z of Literary Persuasion by Blurb Your Enthusiasm: The A-Z of Literary Persuasion by

cancel culture’ is in itself a problematic phrase. but if I were to dip a toe into the culture war, I would come down on the ‘think before you censor, or even censure, if it plays into the hands of a libertarian’ side. why make life easier for your enemies?Hamm (oy, Hamm of all names?) accuses Albert Brooks of being a shanda when an embarrassing secret is discovered at the end of the episode, one of the only references to Covid. David’s decision to largely put the pandemic in the rearview fits perfectly with the tone of the series, which has always shoved aside life’s bigger and more realistic problems and focused on the frustrating aggravations of minutiae. There are things that writers have always suspected. An emotional hook, concrete imagery, simplicity, a mystery withheld, a story: these entice readers and, according to psychologists, create the most activity in our brains. Read a blurb, or any persuasive copy, and feel your neurons fire with joy.

Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Bl… Blurb Your Enthusiasm: A Cracking Compendium of Book Bl…

t.s. eliot on louis macneice: ‘his work is intelligible but unpopular, and has the pride and modesty of things that endure.’We delve into the origins of the blurb, then move onto classic literature to modern classics to nonfiction and most genres in between. The only quibble I had when it came to genres was she seemed to squash science fiction and fantasy into one genre, then skipped between them, confusing me a bit. Cecilia Stein, editorial director, acquired world all language rights from the author, with publication slated for September 2022. Writing briefly means every word must earn its place. Use fewer and make them better. Don’t make the reader do the hard work; be on their side. Never be boring. Ask, why should anybody care? There are more tips inside my book. (It’s an unputdownable tour de force.) The authors Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Weiner have been duking it out over the issue of seriousness since 2010, with Weiner criticising the ‘Franzenfrenzy’ that greeted the publication of his novel Freedom. In her eyes, women writing about domestic situations were seen as limited in their appeal, but when Franzen ‘writes a book about a family … we are told this is a book about America’.’ Blurb your enthusiasm takes you outside of a novel to show you how the blurb has been used through the ages.

Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder | Book review - TLS Blurb Your Enthusiasm by Louise Willder | Book review - TLS

She gives some examples of terrible real-life blurbs which have genuinely been used e.g. for a recent edition of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: "Mom's fishing for husbands - but the girls are hunting for love" and other blurbs which, in contrast, do their job perfectly: distilling the essence of the book into a few sentences while still leaving you thirsty for more.

Willder] is a charming guide not just to blurbs, but to first lines, hatchet jobs, puffs … I couldn’t, as the cliché goes, put it down.’ The three mamaloshen terms were beshert (meaning “meant to be,” often as a descriptor of a loved one), tsuris (meaning “troubles”), and shanda (which is a good way to describe someone who gives tsuris to your beshert.) I understand that the American Federal Trade Commission requires me to state that I received a free review copy from Oneworld Publications via NetGalley. However, my opinions are my own and are unbiased.

Louise Willder | Oneworld

I loved it - it was like having a good old natter over coffee with a writer / reader who loves books as much as I do. One for every bookish TBR for 2022! the spelling bee, which came out of white foundational myths !!!!!! (also rightfully calls the pilgrims the ‘mayflower colonisers’)A fun book to read if you love books. It's all about the outside, covers, titles, and how those blurbs get written. Just as we suspected, some of the blurb writers haven't read the book at all. There's even a computer program that can be fed the facts and it will produce a blurb. Aha!