Hamster that Loved Puccini
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€16.99
Simon Hoggart is back with a new treasure trove of Christmas round robins. And this time they illustrate the seven deadly sins of their writers, including boastfulness (dazzlingly clever children who play the saxophone and ski for Britain); smugness (their job, their house, their holidays are all perfect); tiny-mindedness (do we really need to be told how to start a jigsaw by looking for the straight bits?); whimsy (letters written by pets or babies); and the dreaded over-sharing, in which every illness and operation is described in minute, unwanted detail. Accompanied by Hoggart's wicked commentary, The Hamster that Loved Puccini invites us to ponder what compels people to pen these letters, and what they tell us about them - and ourselves. The Hamster that Loved Puccini is outrageously funny and the perfect Christmas gift for readers of all ages.
Simon Hoggart was the parliamentary sketch-writer and diarist for the Guardian. He also wrote about wine and TV for the Spectator and was the former host of Radio 4's News Quiz. Atlantic Books published Don't Tell Mum: Hair-Raising Messages Home from Gap-Year Travellers in 2006 and The Christmas Letters in 2007. His collection of parliamentary sketches covering the Blair era, The Hands of History, was published in 2007.