In Search of Excellent Blurbs

Tom Peters has built a reputation as a prolific writer of management books and articles. Now he’s built a reputation as a prolific writer of promotional blurbs publishers print on book jackets.

Publishers of business and management books clearly know the value of having a well-known name such as Peters laud a book. A sampling:

* “A vitally important, eminently readable and exceedingly practical book. Must reading for any corporate executive wishing to survive to the year 2000. A super book” (on “Intrapreneuring” by Gifford Pinchot III).

* “ ‘The Death of the Organization Man’ is long overdue, and fills an important void in our understanding” (on Amanda Bennett’s book of that name).

* “This is Mackay’s most important book--and his best” (on Harvey Mackay’s “Sharkproof”).

* “It is, make no mistake, the best management answer for our chaotic times” (on “Adhocracy” by Robert H. Waterman Jr., with whom Peters wrote the bestseller “In Search of Excellence”).

* “It is exciting to have Ralph (Stayer) and Jim Belasco, whose work and writings I respect enormously, teaming up to offer their insights to us” (on “Flight of the Buffalo” by Belasco and Stayer).

* “Jeffrey Pfeiffer has written one of the most important business books in a long time” (on Pfeiffer’s “Competitive Advantage Through People”).

* “Andrea Gabor does a wonderful job of recounting the Deming story--and thence the pursuing of America’s pursuit of renewed competitiveness” (on Gabor’s biography of W. Edwards Deming).

L.A. Is No Sea of Tranquillity

Getting to the moon may look easy compared to getting to Hollywood.

Bidders in an Odyssey Auctions astronaut memorabilia sale Sunday at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel were warned that getting there might be treacherous due to earthquake-caused freeway damage. “Rather than take a chance of missing any portion of the auction, we strongly suggest you contact the hotel for freeway conditions and possible alternate routes,” bidders were told.

Any Tang Still Around?

Call it one small step for commerce.

Sunday’s astronaut memorabilia auction included a variety of memorabilia, some unlikely to ever make it to a museum.

One item was an “Apollo 15 Pineapple Fruit Drink” that is “housed in its original container.” No word on whether it is still drinkable, but auction materials added that it comes with a “bactericide pill.”

Briefly. . .

Superhighway metaphor watch: Detour and pothole were frequently used to describe last week’s collapsed merger between Tele-Communications Inc. and Bell Atlantic. . . . A Beverly Hills gift basket company boasts that “all of our products are natural and earth friendly.” . . . A woman applying for a post-earthquake disaster loan from the Small Business Administration--in a section asking whether she paid anyone to assist her application--listed her husband as receiving “1 kiss and 2 hugs.”