Salon.com > Gary Shetyngart blurb http://www.salon.com Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Gary Shteyngart is not a whore http://www.salon.com/2012/08/02/gary_shteyngart_is_not_a_whore/ http://www.salon.com/2012/08/02/gary_shteyngart_is_not_a_whore/#comments Thu, 02 Aug 2012 23:50:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12969969 Gary Shteyngart threatened to retire from blurbing in the New York Times Book Review this week, and thousands of writers cried, "No!"

After all, the blurb game is hard for novelists -- and Shteyngart is easy. He's the rare combination of a best-selling literary writer, and a generous enough person to spend time reading and praising other authors' work. An entire genius Tumblr feed -- shteyngartblurbs.tumblr.com -- is dedicated to collecting his "promiscuous praise."

“My blurbing standards are very high,” Shteyngart told A.J. Jacobs, another writer who can't say no when asked for a blurb. “I look for the following: Two covers, one spine, at least 40 pages, ISBN number, title, author’s name. Once those conditions are satisfied, I blurb. And I blurb hard. I’ve blurbed about a hundred novels in the past 10 years, nearly every one that landed on my desk.

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