Lots of short pieces relating to the art of the blurb. Initially the pieces seemed fairly light and amusing enough. But I thought the book got better towards the end, with a few pieces on related topics like publishing, cover art and children’s books. Wilder also covers tricky areas like psychology and blurbing books dealing with sensitive or controversial subjects (e.g. Lolita).
I also appreciated her discussion of Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, since I happened to be reading that at the same time. Wilder seems to like it more than I do.
From actual blurb-writing, to publishing and translation, this book covered much more ground than I thought it would. I now have much more appreciation for blurb-writers.