You don’t need to be told what these are. They are those first couple of pages that you probably skip over to get to the meat of the book – unless you can’t wait to see if you are going to get a mention.
But we note a new trend in acknowledgement writing. The skilled author is now using those precious first few pages to win audiences, boost sales or even add a Machiavellian twist designed to disarm critics before they begin reading.
How do authors pull off these tricks? Simplest of all is to acknowledge everyone you ever met. The average for books that crossed our desk this week is 41. But our record is 175. Could any author really have taken in comments from 175 critics? How insecure do you have to be to create a list of credits that long?
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Is there is a better way to win readers? Dropping in famous names can help. Steven Pinker’s forthcoming book The Blank Slateacknowledges a Who’s Who of evolutionary biology and psychology. But if you don’t have Pinker’s clout be inventive. If the acknowledgement thanks the author’s wife for recreating the book after the “loss in the post of the finally processed typescript” you know you’re in for something different. And The Greek Language by Leonard Palmer was indeed brilliant.
The disarming “thanks to Pathology guy Ed Friedlander MD for answering idiot questions on exactly what happens if someone sticks a spike in your heart” had us paying out for Jon Courtney Grimwood’s Pashazade. We were not swayed, of course, by his thanks to “New ĐÓ°ÉÔ´´, just for existing”.
Other ploys include thanks “to a young man who expected to be President of Bolivia in 2020”, in James Hamilton’s biography of Faraday, published recently, and “the drunken sage in the Cafä Bräunerhof who made me think anew, and who graciously provided me with an epilogue”, in Philipp Blom’s just – published history of collectors and collecting, To Have and to Hold.
Even more cunning is to mention everyone who hates you. No review editor will ever send a book for review to someone who has been thanked for their help with the same book, so in one stroke you have silenced all your rivals. Palaeontologists have used this to great effect, but as they are always at each others’ throats about the tiniest of fossils, anything that reduces the level of warfare is welcome.
For the majestically self – assured author there is yet another approach. In his final book, the 1433 – page The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, the late Stephen Jay Gould acknowledges… no one.