{"id":2437,"date":"2012-02-02T10:40:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T15:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/?p=2437"},"modified":"2021-11-27T22:10:57","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T03:10:57","slug":"a-brief-history-of-book-blurbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/02\/a-brief-history-of-book-blurbs\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Book Blurbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><strong>Chabon<\/strong>. <strong>Obreht<\/strong>. <strong>Franzen<\/strong>. <strong>McCann<\/strong>. <strong>Egan<\/strong>. <strong>Brooks<\/strong>. <strong>Foer<\/strong>. <strong>Lethem<\/strong>. <strong>Eggers<\/strong>. <strong>Russo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Possible hosts for Bravo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Next Top Novelist<\/em>? Dream hires for the Iowa Writers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Workshop?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0307958701\/ref=nosim\/themillions-20\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.amazon.com\/images\/P\/0307958701.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg\" alt=\"cover\" align=\"right\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> Nope \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<a href=\"http:\/\/arts.nationalpost.com\/2012\/01\/05\/nathan-englander-recipient-of-greatest-collection-of-blurbs-ever\/\">Murderer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Row<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of advance blurbers featured on the back of <strong>Nathan Englander\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/strong> new effort, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0307958701\/ref=nosim\/themillions-20\">What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank<\/a><\/em>. And what an effort it must be: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Utterly haunting. Like <strong>Faulkner<\/strong> [Russo] it tells the tangled truth of life [Chabon], and you can hear Englander\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s heart thumping feverishly on every page [Eggers].\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>As I marvel at the work of Knopf\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s publicity department, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but feel a little ill. And put off. <em>Who cares? Shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the back of a book just have a short summary? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t this undignified?<\/em> But answering these questions responsibly demands more than the reflexive rage of an offended aesthete (Nobody cares! Yes! Yes!). It demands, I think, the level-headed perspective of a blurb-historian\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.themillions.com\/2012\/02\/i-greet-you-in-the-middle-of-a-great-career-a-brief-history-of-blurbs.html\">The Millions : I Greet You in the Middle of a Great Career: A Brief History of Blurbs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chabon. Obreht. Franzen. McCann. Egan. Brooks. Foer. Lethem. Eggers. Russo. Possible hosts for Bravo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Next Top Novelist? Dream hires for the Iowa Writers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Workshop? Nope \u00e2\u20ac\u201d just the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Murderer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Row\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of advance blurbers featured on the back of Nathan Englander\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new effort, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank. And what &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/02\/a-brief-history-of-book-blurbs\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Brief History of Book Blurbs<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[317,556,68,291],"class_list":["post-2437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-did-you-know","tag-blurbs","tag-englander","tag-history","tag-themillions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2437"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10071,"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2437\/revisions\/10071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.waubonsee.edu\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}