Artist: Ron Barrett

It is, says Joe Queenan, “the least-discussed subject in the world of belles-lettres: book reviews that any author worth his salt knows are unjustifiably enthusiastic.” In an essay for The New York Times, he asks “how often does an author ever come out and admit that the praise showered on his book was excessive, inappropriate, ill-considered, unseemly or flat-out wrong? That’s the sort of thing that takes real moral fiber, real guts.” But he manages to find a few: Dave Barry complains that, “I once had a review in The New York Times in which a nice reviewer described me as ‘the funniest man in America.’ This is a ridiculous assertion; I am not the funniest man in my neighborhood. . . . People introduce me to audiences by saying, ‘The New York Times has called him the funniest man in America,’ as if the Times editorial board decided this after painstakingly considering all the other American men. The worst was when I was on a book tour in England, where the BBC radio hosts would read the Times quote in such a way as to suggest: Funniest man in America, eh? As if that means anything.”