"Tom Wolfe is a goddam joy."

PaperCuts, the New York Times' blog about books, presents a slideshow of great book ads from the 60s and early 70s here. My favorite, both for image and book title, is the ad for Edna O'Brien's August is a Wicked Month. Over thirty years later, the ad is successful in that it makes me want to read the book. (Except I'll probably get it from the library, so perhaps that makes the ad unsuccessful-- true success would lead to a sale?)

These ads lead me to some books I've been meaning to read and haven't yet (interestingly, they are, in a way, paired: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), as well as to books I might not have thought to read: O'Brien, Crews, Ellison's essays.

But most intriguing are the blurbs-- I'd like to draw a kind of family tree of the authors who have blurbed each book and their interconnections, outward reach, etc. Also, the funny language of the blurbs themselves, as the PaperCuts commentary does a good job of pointing out. Should we be reassured or annoyed that the same reviewer cliches abound today as they did then? The cliches are worth it, though, for the gems-- Is Tom Wolfe really a goddam joy? From The Bonfire of the Vanities, I'd say no. But maybe once I finally read TEKAAT, my answer, in proper 60s fashion, will swing the other way.