I guess this could have been a Pit thread, but I don’t feel *that * strongly over it.
I don’t read a book that doesn’t have a description on either the book jacket or back unless - it’s a trusted author, or someone’s recommended it.
I hate when book jackets devote a paragraph or two to the book description and then segue into all the awards the author’s won for his other books, or all about his author’s life.
To me this is a sure sign that the book *sucks * and the book jacket writer thought so.
Sometimes all the cover has are blurbs from reviewers and they don’t tell you what the damn thing is about.
One thing I’ve learned is a book has a blurb from one of my favorite authors, it is 100% guaranteed to be crap. It seems that the better the writer, the greater the chance that they wouldn’t know a good book if it walked up and bit them on the butt. It’s very strange.
I hate non-descriptive book jackets as well. I read a lot of romance novels, and often when I see a new paperback book cover by a favorite author I have a hard time determining whether the book is a new book or an old book in new clothes. And if it is an old book in new clothes, I want to be able to tell (without buying the book and reading large portions of it) whether it is a book I have read previously or not. Especially if it is a book being reprinted for the second or third time. In particular, I wish that more book jackets would include information like “This is the story of Edmund Fitzgerald, first introduced in *That other novel[/] about his brother”. Give me something on the cover or on the inside front cover which will help me figure out whether this is one of the 12 J.D. Robb books which I have read or not and which order they were printed in. Admittedly, I’m not always sure what could be included that would always trip my memory, especially with authors I only borrow from the library, since names of characters don’t always accomplish it.