Judging a Book...

On the backflap of the dustjacket to John Carey's new book What Good are the Arts? can be read the following brief biography:

John Carey is the Chief Book Reviewer for The Sunday Times (London). He has been at various points in his life a soldier, a television critic, a beekeeper, a bartender, and a professor of literature at Oxford.

He is also, evidently, a complete ass. The blurb alone was enough to convince me not to thumb any further. You can tell a lot about a book from its blurbs. Shameless boasting is not something that speaks well for a writer, particularly when he tries to mask it with pseudo-humility (evident in the rather self-applauding way Carey lists even his "humbler" professions).

It reminded me of what is undoubtedly the best (or worst) example of obnoxious blurbing in recent times. That distinction belongs to Arthur Phillips, who had the following printed about himself on the dustjacket of his book Prague:

Arthur Phillips was born in Minneapolis and educated at Harvard. He has been a child actor, a jazz musician, a speechwriter, a dismally failed entrepreneur, and a five-time Jeopardy! champion. He lived in Budapest from 1990 to 1992 and now lives in Paris with his wife and son.