Interesting piece by Elinor Lipman in the NY Times about those blurbs from famous authors on the backs of books. Check it out here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/12/books/12LIPM.html

Authors write their own five-star reviews
By Daniel Foggo
(Filed: 11/08/2002)

Some of Britain's bestselling authors are giving their own novels glowing reviews on Amazon, the internet booksellers, by pretending to be readers.

Read the complete story here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/08/11/nauth11.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/08/11/ixhome.html