In a medium whose format champions concision, I assume blurb writers follow a style mandate: Say as much as one can, in the fewest words possible. They surely must have a Strunk & White guide of their own. Imagine if Strunk & White had Twitter. Imagine their replies. “Gadzooks,” they might say, “I am agog at the critique I posted this evening!” they might say. Those dudes would post grammar rules every day and get roasted. Meanwhile, I find myself flummoxed when facing and critiquing wordy blurbs, as I preach brevity on a pedestal hewn from my own satirically tangled diction. It’s one thing to giggle at the classic, “Do as I say, not as I do.” It’s another thing entirely to throw rocks at a glass house, especially when my glass house follows the architectural logic of the Winchester mystery mansion.
