Reading My Own Rip-Offs

Although I’m not proud of it, as an author, I often engage in the masochistic ritual of checking my Amazon ranking and reviews.

So back in the spring, shortly after my latest book came out, I typed “The Puzzler” by A. J. Jacobs into the Amazon search bar and pressed “Enter.”

Up came my book, of course. But to my surprise, so did several other books. Six of them. These books had titles such as Summary of The Puzzler by A.J. Jacobs and Workbook for The Puzzler by A.J. Jacobs. They ranged from $5 to $13.

As you can imagine, I was a bit baffled. I know firsthand the long history of study guides and book summaries. In high school, I used Cliffs Notes to help me decipher The Scarlet Letter, and its rival SparkNotes is a huge business.

But my book—a memoir and cultural history about puzzles, including crosswords, jigsaws, and riddles—had come out just a couple of weeks before. And though I was proud of it, it wasn’t yet a classic text being taught in schools and