Product Description

Simon Hoggart is the ultimate Christmas curmudgeon. Every year about this time, unwanted round robins, stuffed with news of young Chloe's nauseating excellence at - well - everything, the announcement of Janet's cousin's husband's friend's divorce, or the details of Terry's colonoscopy, accumulate on doormats, and Simon Hoggart decided to do something about it. In 2004, he mercilessly presented the most eye-popping examples of such letters in his bestseller, "The Cat that Could Open the Fridge", and followed it up with "The Hamster that Loved Puccini", hoping he had put a stop to them. And yet the letters, booklets and photo-montages kept on coming. So here, to drive home his message, "The Christmas Letters" brings together his two collections in an anthology that will have everyone choking with laughter on their Christmas pudding.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4756 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
"'The funniest book of last year was The Cat That Could Open the Fridge, and I thought it would be impossible to better it. But his new assault on round robins, The Hamster That Loved Puccini, is even funnier... I could hardly hold the pen through paroxysms of cachinnation, or focus on the page through tears of mirth.' Spectator 'Wonderfully, horribly funny.' Martin Rowson, Independent on Sunday 'With Hoggart's wicked commentary, the dullest imaginable gobbets of useless information are transformed into gems of hilarity.' Christopher Matthew, Daily Mail"

About the Author
Simon Hoggart is the parliamentary sketch-writer and diarist for the Guardian. He also writes about wine and TV for the Spectator and is the former host of Radio 4's News Quiz. Atlantic published Don't Tell Mum: Hair-Raising Messages Home from Gap-Year Travellers in 2006.

Customer Reviews

JUST WEEP OUT LOUD FUNNY
All these cases for and against the prosecution of the round robin genre seem rather to miss the point. This book makes you snort with laughter in the way that makes stangers edge away from you on the bus. Simon Hoggart is uniformly brilliant in the Guardian and his linking passages and introductions to these ludicrous letters is as funny as the letters themselves.

Putting the Case for the Defence
Round-robin letters are no substitute for real letters. Real letters care about who they are written to. Round-robins care only about the writer. I rest my case. More evidence can be found in my review of "The Cat that Could Open the Fridge", M'lud. I also call upon "Noel & Ellen's Weird and Wonderful History of the Dreaded Christmas Newsletter" as a character witness. Calling...

Putting the case for the prosecution
It needs to said that almost all the criticisms of round-robin letters come from those who don't write round-robin letters. Hoggart's campaign highlights the fact that the Christmas card world divides into those who do write round-robins, those don't write anything, and that small group that send personal letters to each recipient.

I am squarely in the pro-round-robin camp. I may get annoyed by some of the round-robins I receive each year, but I would far rather receive them than just get a card signed 'Love Jean'. I get cards from people I haven't seen for years, and I'm just amazed that they use Christmas cards to continue to keep me totally in the dark about how their families are growing.

This book may improve the self-editing skills of some round-robin writers, but I suspect the most likely outcome is the reduction in the number of round-robins sent out, for which we are all the poorer.

That said, there are some very funny passages in this book.