WHY CAN'T I FIND A GOOD BOOK?

It's getting harder and harder for me to finish reading a novel.

What happens is, I read a book's provocative blurb telling me that this MIND-PARALYZING BOOK FOR THE AGES will scare me out of my shorts or something, but then I find out after reading the first twenty pages that I don't care what happens to the hero; and I sure don't want to know why the elms are creaking. I toss it aside.

And I've given up paying attention to novels with blurbs that scream LOCK THE DOORS BEFORE YOU START READING THIS BODICE-RIPPING BLOCKBUSTER!

At the library I can spend half an hour at the racks reading blurbs about the latest literary sensations, hoping to find a novel written by a wise and wonderful author who will keep me up all night reading a SPRAWLING PAGE-TURNER in a breathless rush to the astounding conclusion.

But how often does the book deliver? Not very often to me.

Nowadays, publishers know that if they want to sell a book they've got to insert a blurb warning the reader to OPEN THIS MONSTER BESTSELLER IF YOU DARE!

Even how-to books on plumbing promise to GRAB YOU BY THE THROAT and drag you into a maze of international underground intrigue.

I won't even check out a library paperback whose blurb doesn't at least claim that it will tell me what my auto mechanic hopes I'll never find out, while also promising to reveal the secrets of the universe as shown in the secret writings of the ancient ones who really, really built the pyramids.

ANOTHER MIND-BLOWING TELL-ALL BOOK
Vince Johnson