I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.
Writing long books is a laborious and impoverishing act of foolishness: expanding in five hundred pages an idea that could be perfectly explained in a few minutes. A better procedure is to pretend that those books already exist and to offer a summary, a commentary.
I get to show the reader the essence of the book without giving anything away.
I'm no good at describing my books. 'Holes' has been out now for seven years, and I still can't come up with a good answer when asked what that book is about.
The first function of a book review should be, I believe, to give some idea of the contents and character of the book.
After you've read a novel, you only retain a vague memory of its contents. You remember the atmosphere, the odd image or phrase or vivid cameo.
Books and novels in particular that grapple with quite a few things are difficult to explain, so I think that first line can come in a substitute for trying to form a longer sense of what the book is about.
My gift, if that's not too grandiose a term, is one for describing novels, biographies, and works of history in such a way that people want to read them.
Good blurbs are short, sweet, and limited to six. They answer the question “Why should I buy this book?
