The Spam Letters
by Jonathan Land
June 2004, 232 pp.
$14.95
ISBN 1-59327-032-1
Notes
- The above is from the No Starch Press catalog entry for this book.
- To visit the catalog entry, click on the cover image above.
Miscellaneous
What You Get
- over 100 responses to spam divided into 10 chapters (including at least enough of the original spam to give context for the response).
- a scattering of graphics, and yes, they actually contribute.
- lots of of good laughs.
Why They Reply
I'm not alone in wondering why some of the spammers reply long past the time it's clear the author is not serious.
My theory is they are also writing books which will consist of amusing letters from the people they spam. Hey, it could be.
Online
The Author
One starting place for more about the author is incomplete.com.
The author is certainly not limited to writing letters (well, actually, they're emails).
Don't miss the author's famed stick art. See
Then there's the Consumer Report stories by the author. Very fun.
The Book
When I looked (2005-09-03), I didn't find this book on Safari Tech Books Online. I did notice that No Starch Press was not listed as one of the publishers with books on Safari.
There is a Spam Letters Website. You can get a feel for what's in the book by visiting it. You may also wish to visit it after reading the book. There is some overlap between the book and the website, but how much I don't know.
If you visit the No Starch Press catalog entry for the book, you'll find a link to a PDF for a sample chapter of the book.
Spam Humor
In addition to Jonathan Land, lots of other people find spam amusing. You'll see this if you do a Google search on spam humor.
Here's three examples
My Review
Smiley Rating: :) :) :) :) of 5
You've gotten spam, right? Perhaps you've also chuckled at the absurdity of some spam. Perhaps you've even fanatasized about answering spam, but likely (and probably wisely) you haven't answered any.
Jonathan Land, the author of this book, doesn't just fantasize about answering spam, he actually does it - a lot. His website The Spam Letters and this book contain some of his responses. His responses are, I would say, even more absurd than the spam he responds to. Surprisingly, some of the spammers answer his responses even though it should be clear he's pulling their chain (and pulling it quite hard).
While reading this book I often found myself laughing at Land's responses. Very funny. The author has an odd but admirable sense of what I like to think of as appropriate absurdity.
One of my favorite responses is the author's response to spam with the subject "SCARE PEOPLE WITH YOUR HUGE COCK". The author chooses to misinterpret COCK (think cock-a-doodle-do and think cock fight) and spins a wonderful outlandish story around that misinterpretation.
The author warns against answering spam as he has. He reports that before he embarked on his weird responses to spam he got 5 to 10 pieces of spam each day. At last report, he was getting 400-450 pieces of spam per day. Ouch!
My advice: (1) get this book if you resent spam and have any apprciation for absurdity. (2) Don't respond to spam; learn from the author's bad example.