Because my Bookman worked at a bookstore for a very long time and because of this blog, our names have ended up on lists and sometimes we receive unsolicited ARCs in the mail. I’m pretty sure we are not asked first so we can’t say no, the publicist madly hoping that if we only had the book in hand we would be so wowed by the blurbs and the PR materials that arrived with the book we would have to drop everything right then and there just to read it. I mean wouldn’t you drop everything for a book that “reads like the unholy spawn of Tom Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald?”
Or what about for an author who has “beaten Oprah Winfrey to a major scoop, been among the first to interview Susan Boyle, spent time on Death Row in the USA and dispensed polio drops in the backstreets of India?” That sentence could have been much better written because it makes it sound like the author spent time on Death Row for crimes he committed rather than interviewing the inmates. One has to wonder if the bio is confusing can the book be much better?
Now here’s one from a book my Dearest actually bought at Half Price Books, a short story horror anthology. Written on the inside flap verbatim:
Never before published in any book STEPHEN KING’s “Rainy Season” brings a plague of terror down from the peaceful skies of Maine… you may want to close your shutters. DAVID J. SCHOW cruises the L.A. streets with a martyred punk whose distinctive “tag” burns through the void of voids. JOE R. LANSDALE finds a plastic, inflatable friend you take almost… anywhere.
It’s brilliant. We move from a plague of terror to the void of voids to an inflatable friend? Somehow I think the horrors involved with inflatable friends are pretty much a guy thing that I would really rather not contemplate. Unfortunately Bookman has not read the story and is unable to elaborate.
Any howlers you’ve come across lately you’d like to share?
I don’t usually read the promotional materials for any ARCs I get, and now I see that I’m right not to! Wow, those bits are bad.
I’ve recently been reading some books related to investing and that world is full of PR (I feel that Jon Stewart’s roast of CNBC and their ilk was, therefore, _long_ overdue).
It is funny when people mine random quotes to make them sound like a plug for the book. Inside the front flap of this book on stock-picking called “The Forever Portfolio” by James Altucher, is a quote in a bold red font “My favorite holding period is forever.” – Warren Buffett. This suggests that Buffett is plugging the book when he is doing nothing of the kind.
Today, even if Bufett sneezes next to you, it is considered as an endorsement, and apparently the publishers want to take advantage of the fact. Never mind that Buffett’s stocks look nothing like the ones recommended in the book. As if Jim Cramer’s resounding endorsement on the cover wasn’t enough of a howler already!
Oh I have nothing quite so marvellous as those – but they are a hoot! Thank you for giving me a laugh first thing in the morning!
I’m still trying to recover from reading David Hasselhoff’s autobiography.
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Haha an inflatable friend you take everywhere – is that because they got stuck in it, that would be horrific and hilarious! (I enjoy your spam quote above as well).