The (Surprisingly Sordid) History Of Book Blurbs

Gary Shteyngart: “‘I’ll look at a first sentence [of a galley], I’ll look at the cover and it just comes to me,’ he says. ‘Reading randomly from a book is also very helpful. Sometimes I try to read further — but you know, how far can you get? Does anyone even read these books anymore?’ That said, he doesn’t hold back. ‘I’ve compared people to Shakespeare, Tolstoy or whatever.'”