"The peculiar charm of the dust jacket bio"

John Freeman has an interesting piece at NewcityChicago about dust jacket bios. (The Pelevin fake-degree bit makes me think of Golden Rule Jones' fake bio, which I'm still waiting for some clueless journalist to swallow as fact.)

And reading books without any idea who wrote them is a bit like having sex in total darkness; it feels good, but you wonder whose body you're crashing into.

Give me a book deal, publishing industry, and I'll be as anti-reticent with the dust jacket as you can possibly stand. Disciplinary notes from my fourth-grade teacher, embarrassing Polaroids, memories of better-left-forgotten high school crushes, you name it.