Return Of The Timewaster Letters (Tom Thorne Novels) Paperback – 5 October 2006

Good read

I loved the Timewaster Diaries by Robin Cooper and so thought about getting this well. Its quite interesting and makes for fun reading.The Robin Cooper books are a fun-kind of humor. I've always been a fan of British humor and these are good- funny lines delivered with a straight-faced sort of approach. The Timewaster Diaries were much more fun however, but you have so many references to the letters' he sent in the Diaries that its nice to see what they refer to...Recommended but go with Timewaster Diaries first to get a true feel of Robin Cooper's insanity :)

Absolutely hilarious. Love it.

Nothing can top the inspired lunacy of the first edition of these letters. Perhaps the hilarity comes from the shock of the new, as I didn't find this follow up, although exactly the same scenario, as funny.The premise is, Cooper writes bizarre and random letters to a bunch of real people/companies etc. They should throw the letters away as the ravings of a madman. Clearly they don't and correspondence ensues where the other party has taken their valuable time and effort to take him seriously and writes back with that in mind.Don't get me wrong, these are still funny, and there are still some absolute gem, laugh out loud moments. But I did think the first letters were far funnier, so I would start there. Still recommended reading for a wet, rainy day when you're feeling a bit down. Better than a valium or a prozac.

Often copied but the humour is unique in this and the previous book. The only author who really does make me laugh out loud page after page. Anyone who has worked with the public will have some sympathy with the recipients of the letters and should be applauded in some cases for their tolerance.Why moan, rant and rave about poor customer service when you can be so subversive in such an innocent way. The paradigm of modern English eccentricity, if only more people used similar techniques to engage with faceless corporate entities, the world would be a better place. I've used similar techniques on cold callers and the whole family now look forward to every telesales call.Check out Robin Cooper phone calls and other related works.

For those of you who haven't read 'The Timewaster Letters' by this author, then read that first. Not that this sequel is much different, but it gives the background to some of the running gags.This and its sequel are the funniest books of their type since 'The Henry Root Letters', in fact I'm giggling just thinking about it and I read it 3 weeks ago! If you have no sense of humour, don't bother. If you do, do.