Here are some of my favorite examples of riveting, exciting, man-I-gotta-read-that-book yet surprisingly generic blurbs. Can you match each compelling blurb with its book?

1) The killer has the whole city by its strings–and he’ll stop at nothing to become the most terrifying star that Washington D.C. has ever seen.

2) With this life-affirming tale of friendship and fate, [author] once again shows why she is a nationally bestselling author with legions of loyal fans.

3) But there are some lines that should never be crossed—like the one [character]’s stepping over . . . again!

4) A story of depth and emotion, hilarity and imagination, [title] tells a story of love, family, and loss.

5) But when a chance encounter brings them together again, the time has finally come to make a choice, one that will have profound consequences for them both for the rest of their lives.

a) The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

b) Double Cross by James Patterson

c) Lone Eagle by Danielle Steel

d) The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison

According to yesterday’s edition of The New York Times, in an article entitled “Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab”, this is a common impulse. Almost everyone thinks he or she has a brilliant novel dormant in the subconscious. Once a little effort is spent sitting down and writing the thing, the beloved project will sweep across the nation, changing minds and hearts in a furious blast of praise and appreciation, and the humble writer will never have to work their stupid day job again.

Call me an elitist, but I think I prefer the time when publishing a novel seemed impossible. Now, anyone with the willingness to inflict his written opinions on the public can add to the pile of published dreck waiting for the incinerator or recycling bin. Volumes of bad poetry pour from Lulu.com’s presses, and it seems every author contacts us asking if we can add Crocodiles I Have Loved, the new book of stunning genius from previously unpublished author Joe Schmoe, to our catalog.

The sad truth is: not everyone can write. Each of us without fail thinks we’re the one to produce that work– witty, engaging, meaningful, something that transcends genre or specific population and speaks to everyone. And I suppose it’s a beautiful thing when anyone with a voice, a story to tell, and a penchant for self-expression can get his work out there. But is it worth filling our shelves with works that belonged in the back of the sock drawer? Is it worth going from the equivalent of a newspaper, wherein every piece you see has been edited and approved by professionals from the idea stage to final copyediting, to blogs, where you could have a Shakespeare typing on the same website used by teenage girls to talk about their middle school crushes?

He turned the page, and I recognized the picture of the Doomsday clock, a few minutes to midnight, with the picture of something red ‘oozing’ down an otherwise black page. This was the only graphic novel to make it to Time’s 100 Top Novels of the 20th Century: Alan Moore’s Watchmen, a dark epic of humanity’s failings that transcends its format.

When I’m talking to a customer on the phone and I see a book in a member’s pool that I’ve read, my usual reaction is to bellow in approval and encourage swift reading of the title. This kneejerk reaction doesn’t seem appropriate on the train. At the same time, though, it’s tough being a book fan– it’s not like a movie, where millions tend to see the same film at the same time. Where can we go to talk about our books and share our enthusiasm? When we notice one of those easily-missed details in a book, and we’re excited to share it with other readers who might not have seen something so small, who do we talk to?

Reading a book is a solitary experience– when we we someone reading the same book, it can be hard to fight that impulse to share our insights because we have so few opportunities to do so. Hard to say on the morning commute, though, when everyone is struggling to muster the energy for the day ahead and may not be open to literary discussion.