Book endorsements are the fuel that keeps the publishing industry’s hype machine in motion. This perhaps explains why some better-known authors allegedly knock them out without even reading the novel they’re praising. Writing in The Guardian a few years ago, the novelist Nathan Filer revealed that he had received 42 unsolicited proofs in the six months after winning the Costa Book of the Year prize—each accompanied by hyperbolic prose from the publishers, who clearly hoped that some authors would repeat their praise verbatim in quotes for the cover. 

Whether the words originate from marketing teams or time-strapped authors, the effusive and occasionally unintelligible language of book blurbs is prolific. Frank McCourt, the author of Angela’s Ashes, seems to believe that three sep...