Boudreaux Books
For Lit Hub, Kerri Arsenault interviews Lee Boudreaux, editor at the newly-minted Little, Brown imprint Boudreaux Books, about the editing process, the publishing world, and the necessary evil of book blurbs.
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You’ll Claw Yourself with Pleasure
NPR presents the art, science, and history of the book blurb.
...moreDon’t (Blurb) Speak
Wallace coined the helpful term “blurbspeak,” which he defined as “a very special subdialect of English that’s partly hyperbole, but it’s also phrases that sound really good and are very compelling in an advertorial sense, but if you think about them, they’re literally meaningless.” Though David Foster Wallace was somewhat skeptical about book blurbs, he […]
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Great Blurbs in History: A Selection
“After his breakout success with The Illiad, the blind poet shows no signs of second-epic syndrome. Sprint to your closest scribe and snag a copy before the papyrus runs out!”
...moreGary Shteyngart Won’t Blurb Your Book
A Gary Shteyngart blurb seemed almost a rite of passage in recent years, with the author of Super Sad True Love Story offering his recommendation to more than one hundred books. But Kirsten Reach reports that the author has retired from the art of book blurbing—and offers some of her favorite Shteyngart blurbs—in a reflection […]
...moreThe Ancient Art of the Book Blurb
Book blurbs—and the controversies surrounding them—go back as far as Thomas More, who gathered a bouquet of them for Utopia. Ben Jonson blurbed Shakespeare. Ralph Waldo Emerson blurbed Walt Whitman. But do they really mean anything anymore? Click through to find out—and read historical blurbs and blurb satires like this one: Say! Ain’t this book a […]
...moreErickson Eats Oranges, Or How To Really Like A Book
I’m a sucker for blurbs, I have to admit. But then writers blurb their friends, right? It’s just the right thing to do, so maybe it doesn’t say that much about the book. Yet I’m always looking to see what writers have praised what books and why. It’s borderline compulsive. (Jonathan Lethem, I’ve decided, has […]
...moreThe Ethics of the Book Blurb
Are there political advantages to writing book blurbs? Are there ethical lines writers shouldn’t cross? Scott Esposito of Conversational Reading weighs in using Nicole Krauss’ positive, to say the very least, blurb of David Grossman’s To the End of the Land. What’s your take on the blurb? Does Krauss go a tad overboard or is […]
...moreUnderground No More: The Rumpus Interview with Sam Lipsyte
The Ask tells the story of Milo Burke, the latest in Lipsyte’s long line of anti-heroes. By the end, Lipsyte has strengthened his claim as our greatest comic novelist.
...moreSend Them to Sudan
Longtime 826 Valencia volunteers Nicki and Ryan Moore are ready and willing to travel to Sudan this summer to assist in the opening of a new secondary school in Marial Bai, Sudan, but they need your help! The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation will provide for volunteers once they are in Sudan, but each volunteer must […]
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