I rarely use blurbs on fiction. A blurb is basically a reader liking something. And some writers, people with amazing talent, often like things that are not in the same league as their own works. Doesn't mean that if I were having a chat with someone like that, I wouldn't try to find out why the book or TV show or film is worth my time. But one sentence doesn't really make a difference.
And yet, when it comes to nonfiction, I do pay attention to a blurb. Because if the blurb is from someone I trust as a historian or biographer or scientist, it means that the research could be accurate. Here it's not just "X has written a good book" but also "X has does the homework." Even that is risky, but I've found that certain experts' names on the back of a book really mean the book means certain standards. If a work of history has approbations, on the other hand, from novelists, I usually give it a miss.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-02-19 11:26 am (UTC)And yet, when it comes to nonfiction, I do pay attention to a blurb. Because if the blurb is from someone I trust as a historian or biographer or scientist, it means that the research could be accurate. Here it's not just "X has written a good book" but also "X has does the homework." Even that is risky, but I've found that certain experts' names on the back of a book really mean the book means certain standards. If a work of history has approbations, on the other hand, from novelists, I usually give it a miss.