"Nothing, absolutely nothing, is more thrilling than the prospect of an evening alone in the company of a book."

—Nils Blanc,
The Tyranny of Space

Fans of National Book Critics Circle Award-winning writer Jim Crace are more than familiar with the epigraphs he puts in his books. Some may even know that they're completely invented by the author. (Certain critics haven't even figured that part out.)

How are your epigraph-writing skills? Find out by writing a fake epigraph for Crace's Useless America, a book that went on sale at Amazon.com almost a year ago — despite the fact that Crace had never actually written it (read Jim Crace's essay on Useless America in the Guardian). The best epigraph writers will win signed copies of Crace's nonexistent book from Doubleday (a real publisher), which comes complete with fake epigraphs of its own... and is available in a print run of 75 copies exclusive to Powells.com!

But wait — there's more! Preorder Crace's next novel, The Pesthouse, at 30% off the publisher's price from Powells.com. Yes, we promise: this one's a real novel. (But it will likely still have fake epigraphs.)

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THE FINE PRINT
Okay, we'll save you the trip to Wikipedia (and no one will catch you looking it up):

An epigraph is "a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document or component."

So, all those fancy-pants quotes at the beginning of the last novel you tried to read but eventually gave up on because it just didn't make any sense? Those are epigraphs. They're great because if you don't like the book, at least you can memorize the cool epigraphs and walk around quoting them like you're smarter than everyone who's trying to act smarter than you.

SPOILER ALERT! This is the part where we give away the joke: the book is mostly blank. See, because it's not a real book. I know, it's like offering you a free trip to visit the place that the chicken went to, only to find out it's just across the road — but some of the evil office gnomes think that's pretty funny. Still, it's a signed (mostly) blank book, so if you don't get the joke, hey, free journal! That's been signed by Jim Crace.