Am I the last to hear about Michelle Kerns list of twenty most annoying book review clichés, published in examiner.com in March last year? I think it flickered across my radar briefly a little while ago but it was brought vividly to my attention last week when Ramona Koval (presenter of Radio National’s The Book Show here in Australia) interviewed Michelle Kerns and salon.com reviewer, Laura Miller. I’m not going to report fully on the interview: you can listen to it here if you want to.

Since writing that article, Kerns has created a “game” called “Book Review Bingo“. It contains 24 clichés – with some changes from the original 20 – and they’re listed below (in alphabetical order so you can quickly locate, or not, your favourites):

• at once (as in something is “at once a romance and a mystery”)
• beautifully written
• compelling
• epic
• fully realised
• gritty
• haunting
• in the tradition of
• lyrical
• nuanced
• pitch-perfect
• powerful
• readable
• riveting
• rollicking
• stunning
• sweeping
• that said
• thought-provoking
• timely
• tour de force
• unflinching
• unputdownable
• x meets x (such as “McCarthy meets Hemingway”)

In the interview, the three speakers (Koval fully engaged in this one) discussed (and disagreed to some degree on) favourite (can you call them that?) clichés. One disagreement concerned “that said”. Miller, and I agree with her, suggested it’s not a cliché but more of a connecting word/phrase, a word you use to move from one point or sentence to another. Miller suggested that “however” is used for similar purposes, and that you would never call it a cliché.

That said(!), my questions to you are:

• Do you agree with these clichés?
• What is your view on clichés? Do you actively avoid them? Are there times when you think they can be used?
• Do you have your own pet clichés (that you use, or hate to see used)?

I do try hard to avoid clichés but I know I don’t always succeed – and sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be a better word. What about you?

And, if you are further interested in the subject, you may also like to read Kerns’ report on Robert McCrum’s (of the Guardian) publisherspeak (aka blurbspeak) list. It will make you laugh, if nothing else.