Blurber Woes

Scott Turow and Susan Orlean talk about what it’s like to receive dozens of galleys and being asked to blurb books. My favorite part of the article is toward the very end:

“My advice to readers, in general, is to ignore blurbs,” Turow says. “There’s too much personal political complication in how these advance comments are secured.”
Instead, he offers, read reviews and heed word-of-mouth buzz. In short, arm yourself with substance.
“If you know nothing else about a book and see only blurbs, I would say to most people, ‘You don’t know anything about that book at that point. Except that somebody had a way to get to Scott Turow.’ ”