Books: All Press is Good Press

The New York Times today reports that Picador books is taking a rather direct approach to selling the paperback version of Oprah-snubbing author Jonathan Franzen memoir The Discomfort Zone. Two rather nasty quotes are included in the blurbs -- both from the Times itself. Is it that people only register the blurbs as a mass of positivity without actually reading them? Or is Picador banking on anti-Timesism?