The Round Robin Letters: The Ultimate Collection of Christmas Letters

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Description

Every Christmas, unwanted round robin letters, 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. One day, Simon Hoggart decided to do something about it. 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 Round Robin Letters brings together his two collections in an anthology that will have everyone choking with laughter on their Christmas pudding.

Reviews

With Hoggart's wicked commentary, the dullest imaginable gobbets of useless information are transformed into gems of hilarity. -- Christopher Matthew * Daily Mail *
Wonderfully, horribly funny. -- Martin Rowson * Independent on Sunday *
The late lamented Simon Hoggart used to like collecting excruciating true examples of middle-class family Christmas round-robins, and they are now all together in The Round Robin Letters... A gem. -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year *
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. -- Bevis Hillier * Spectator *
The amazing thing is the sheer quantity and range of examples of this much-derided literary artform that Simon Hoggart was able to assemble - and what a rich seam it is for laugh-aloud reading. * Country Life *

Author Bio

Simon Hoggart was the parliamentary sketch-writer and diarist for the Guardian. He also wrote about wine and TV for the Spectator and was a former host of Radio 4's News Quiz.