When literary fiction is sold as if it were a good soapy read I get the giggles. "Four people in a small Vermont town are about to have their lives inexorably intertwined by the uncertainties of love ... and the apparent absolutes of gender." Quick, when was the last time you used the word "gender" in a discussion that wasn't about society or theory? It's just not a word that anyone attempting to interest you in a story should ever use.

Similarly, you can't promise "an epic first novel of stunning intensity" when the main action concerns a protagonist who "driven by arrogant faith in his ideals and convinced of his family destiny ... storm[s] into the village of Rajottama determined to build a model Buddhist society." Perhaps Martin Scorsese could reconcile those two strands: "From the director of 'Raging Bull' and 'Kundun' comes 'Raging Buddhist' starring Richard Gere."

And unless you're sure your book will never be picked up by a wiseass, it's best to avoid questions as an opening. "What do you do when you find a stranger in your closet?" Drive till you run out of gas and wire the landlord for your security deposit.

I feel a little more sympathy for this copywriter, trying like a trouper to convince you of the hothouse antics contained therein: "Fidelity is strained in the heated atmosphere that surrounds the expatriates who teach at the college at Kampala in the '70s." Is there anything more boring than contemplating the sex lives of academics? But wait, a little touch of foreign intrigue waits in the wings: "While looming over all is the imminent ascension to power of General Idi Amin." Given the size of Idi Amin, what wouldn't he loom over? The Grand Canyon, maybe. For sheer tactlessness, that rates with the publicist who a few years back tried to sell Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols' autobiography by writing that when Nichols was a Vegas dancer she "caught the eye of Sammy Davis, Jr."

Maybe years of inveterate browsing helps you to eventually tune out some of this stuff and get to the books themselves. Or just maybe the relationship between books and the readers who will love them is kismet waiting to happen. Look through your own shelves and I guarantee you'll find turnoff jacket copy on at least a few books you love.

Scanning my own books, I found the following examples: The "novel is an examination of lost paradises, politics without belief, the limits of memory, the redemptive power of love, and the existence of hope beyond reason." That's from the jacket copy of Sebastian Faulks' "Charlotte Gray," which is a hell of a lot more exciting, and a hell of a lot more vital, than anything in that description suggests. And Valerie Martin's "Italian Fever" is described as "Part mystery, part romance, part meditation on the maddening but redemptive power of art."

Are you starting to see a theme emerge? A book that I didn't wind up reading is described as "A luminous work of fiction that celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love." It would appear that there is more redemption going on in modern fiction than there is at a Billy Graham crusade. "Redemption" in this context is the word for "happy ending" for readers who are afraid that "literary" equals "depressing."

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"