In a gripping, rivetting commentary for the Guardian‘s book blog that proves utterly readable, Alastair Harper turns a gimlet eye that’s also somehow edgy on the language of blurbs. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss five or six minutes goodbye as his luscious and limpid prose limns the limp and lumpen thinking behind two of the most popular blurb phrases to gain popularity of late: the word “unputdownable,” and any phrase about a book changing your life.

As Harper — one of the most respected writers of his generation — puts it, what such language “is really about is trying to sidestep the reality that books are pretty useless to us. They don’t keep us warm (unless you finally fling that unputdownable freak in the fire), they don’t feed us, they wreck our environment by costing trees, and sometimes they’re plain poisonous. Sure, they’re enjoyable, but can that be justified? We’re in a time of world economic crisis! The country will be in debt until the apocalypse, and that itself is only a few years away! And what do you want to do in the face of all this terror? Read fiction? You callous, selfish little bastard. Books have to be made to do something useful to the reader before they can be truly welcome at the head of the cultural table.”