The Bluffer's Guides are a collection of humorous pocket-sized guidebooks, written by experts and offering readers the opportunity to pass off appropriated knowledge as their own on a variety of subjects. The series has sold five million copies worldwide. [1]
The Nebraska-based publishing company responsible for Cliffs Notes, those slim volumes of McLiterature sandwiched between yellow-and-black striped covers, has issued a post-graduate reading list called Bluffer's Guides.
The books are designed to teach readers how to wing it through situations or conversations they know little about - like sex, marketing or the great outdoors.
For $3.95 and no more than 80 pages, the authors skim information off the top of a total of 25 subjects and present it in irreverent, easy-to-read language.
Julie Bonnin in the Austin American-Statesman , 1991 [2]
The guides were published between 1965 and 1975 in England, where four million copies of 16 books in the series were purchased. [3] Peter Wolfe, the series' first publisher, sold its publication rights to Anne Taute, a second British publisher. Doug Lincoln, a CliffNotes vice president, discovered the guides while strolling through the Frankfurt Book Fair. He saw a throng of viewers looking at the Bluffer's Guides. Wolfe entered into an agreement with Taute to publish the guides in the United States under the CliffNotes brand. [3]
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram 's Terry Lee Goodrich wrote that the Bluffer's Guides have been referred to as the CliffsNotes of life. The books in the series are roughly 60 percent humor and 40 percent truth, Goodrich wrote. [4]
In 2014, the then publishing group nominated British media personality Katie Hopkins as the first recipient of their "Dishonours list", to recognise bad behaviour and etiquette. Company representative Thomas Drewry said, "There isn't a single person in the UK who Katie Hopkins hasn't offended this year". [1] [5]
In 2018, the Bluffer's Guide series was acquired by Haynes. [6]
Victor Davis Hanson is an American classicist, military historian, and conservative political commentator. He has been a commentator on modern and ancient warfare and contemporary politics for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Washington Times, and other media outlets.
Jonathan Coe is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! (1994) reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name. It is set within the "carve up" of the UK's resources that was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative governments of the 1980s.
CliffsNotes are a series of student study guides. The guides present and create literary and other works in pamphlet form or online. Detractors of the study guides claim they let students bypass reading the assigned literature. The company claims to promote the reading of the original work and does not view the study guides as a substitute for that reading.
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Katie Puckrik is an American broadcaster and newspaper columnist. Born in Virginia, Puckrik is best known for hosting British youth magazine shows The Word and The Sunday Show in the 1990s. She also created and hosted the British television talk show Pyjama Party and subsequently its American remake Pajama Party.
Katie Olivia Hopkins is an English media personality, columnist, far-right political commentator, and former businesswoman. She was a contestant on the third series of the reality television show The Apprentice in 2007; following further appearances in the media, she became a columnist for British national newspapers, including The Sun (2013–2015) and MailOnline (2015–2017).
Peter James Clayton was an English jazz presenter on BBC Radio, jazz critic, and author. From October 1968 until his death in August 1991, Clayton presented jazz recordings, interviews, studio performances, and live performances on BBC Radio 1, 2, and 3, as well as the BBC World Service. He co-authored several books about music and jazz with Peter Gammond and was a frequent contributor to jazz magazines.
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Mairi Hedderwick is a Scottish illustrator and author, known for the Katie Morag series of children's picture books set on the Isle of Struay, a fictional counterpart of the inner Hebridean island of Coll where Hedderwick has lived at various times for much of her life.
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Celebrity Big Brother 15 was the fifteenth series of the British reality television series Celebrity Big Brother. The series launched on 7 January 2015 on Channel 5 and ended after 31 days on 6 February 2015; at the time it was the longest ever celebrity series. The seventeenth series in 2016 lasted a day longer with 32 days. It was the eighth celebrity series and the twelfth series of Big Brother overall to air on the channel. Emma Willis returned to host the series, whilst Rylan Clark continued to present the spin-off show Celebrity Big Brother's Bit on the Side alongside Willis. Repeats of the series aired on MTV, the first to do so. Willis decided to leave Big Brother's Bit on the Side after the end of this series, hosting her final show on 2 February 2015.
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