Monday 25 June, 2007

Too wordy?

I thought Caroline Baum's article on the fraught business of book acknowledgments, was spot on. 'All this raises a sensitive question of etiquette: does one have to ask permission to thank someone? I know people who have been acknowledged in novels when their involvement amounted to no more than workshopping the title over a boozy lunch, and who, on reading the finished product, might have preferred to have their name left out of the equation. They felt a little used, knowing their name would give the book credibility it possibly did not deserve.' I also laughed at this piece on the art of dedications was very funny as well. 'Then all of a sudden it came to me. My dedication would read, "For Sophie, for all time", and underneath, in square brackets, would be the words, "Dedication applies to hardback only".'

Update: An amusingly mean review of The Diana Chronicles does good pseudo acknowledgements:Acknowledgments:'One of the nicest things about writing this book has been the opportunity to remind everyone that I am extremely well connected. To this end, I would like to list five pages of my closest establishment and media friends as a warning to critics that they will never work in journalism again if they give this book a bad review. I would also like to reassure Sarah Bradford that I only discovered her biography, Diana, towards the end of my research.'