We have all read articles by authors who are not happy about reviews of their books, but I have great sympathy with Brian Clegg, author of The Global Warming Survival Kit and many other titles besides, on this particular occasion. One of Brian's gripes is that, as authors so often say in his position, the reviewer does not seem to have read the book. Brian has various pieces of evidence for this, but the most incontrovertible is that the review "says at one point Clegg offers tips on how to prepare a worm sandwich. Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the text about worm sandwiches. There is a section with a heading Worm sandwiches – and that seems to be as far as he has read."
QED.
By the way, as well as being the author of many books, Brian runs the Popular Science website, which I can highly recommend, as well as his entertaining and frequently informative blog Popsci.You can learn useful things, for example that you can buy 2Gb of mobile phone memory via Amazon for 99p, or you can choose to pay £20 for the same thing at a "High Street retailer".
He has my sympathy. I read something the other day that suggested an interviewer for an author had lost attention to detail at the very least. No excuses in my book, especially when it comes to professionals.
Following the rules of a meme, Maxine, I've tagged you for "six random facts". If you choose to take it up, you can find it here:
http://itsacrime.typepad.com/its_a_crime_or_a_mystery/2008/04/another-meme-an.html
And I do hope you do. Cheers!
Posted by: crimeficreader | 26 April 2008 at 16:46
Thanks, Crime Fic. I've been tagged for that one a few times, will do if I have time......
Interestingly, I've just read a book where the character's name is wrong on the blurb - twice.
Posted by: Maxine | 26 April 2008 at 18:24