UKH

Browsing in Waterstones earlier, found a book I fancied in the "buy one get one half price" deal so looked for another book and was struggling to find anything of interest. Eventually found another table with a selection of books in the same deal, picked one up that looked promising (SAS - Rogue Heroes, the authorized wartime history,  Ben Macintyre). Read the back cover, flicked through a couple of pages...looked at some photos inside. Very promising and I need a second book for the deal. I'm not an avid war reader but my elderly neighbour is ex army and has told me many tales about his father who he claims is a founding member of the SAS.  Perfect.

I'm just about to go to the counter when I casually look at the cover again and there, inexplicably, staring me in the face below all the standard superlatives you find from the obvious broadsheets on the book jacket , it says, *in the center of the cover*

"Dermot O'Leary - So Good"

check it out

https://www.waterstones.com/book/sas/ben-macintyre/9780241186862

I couldn't buy it, this bamboozled me completely and I walked out the shop with nothing. I feel like an idiot allowing something like that to influence my decision. I don't dislike Dermot O'Leary and I believe him when he says the book is "so good".  I'm just wondering why the publisher put his opinion on the front cover ?...or is there another Dermot O'leary who doesn't present the X Factor that I am ignorant of (very possible)? And does any of this matter? 

Thx for reading

Still a little bizarre but probably something to do with this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS:_Are_You_Tough_Enough%3F

He may also be mate of the author?

Aha! Good call, you may well be right. Anyway, I have decided to buy it and am going to try and talk to myself next time I find I am being a wanky snob

It's for that reason that I talk almost exclusively to myself these days...

Your aversion to O'Leary isn't unfounded. 

I have a friend who refused to consider the paperback of Andrew Smith's "Moon Dust" because it had a Richard and Judy's Book Club (or some such) endorsement printed onto the front cover (oddly LOOKING like a sticker but actually part of the front cover print). When I say "refused to consider", I mean that she preferred to spend £3 posting her hardback copy to me, than to allow me to buy the paperback for £4 !

Don't beat yourself up about it.
Wanky snobbery is a prerequisite for UKC Forums membership

More self confessed wankery.... wouldn’t buy a book with a film tie in cover. Conversely, unjustifiably proud of pre blockbuster, paperback first editions, Fight Club and Train Spotting, among others.

We all do it to some extent .

i was irrationally disappointed to see some endorsements on an edition of my favourite novel “Geek Love” eg Audrey Niefenegger. I’ve never read her work and have nothin g against her but some internal snob in me said “don’t sell my favourite novel to all them people who enjoyed some massive popular novel a few years ago”. It is an odd bit of human nature , there was even a letter into Viz about this sort of thing!