Ted L. NancyCritiques

cracked me up..bit repetitive

It sounded funnier than it really was.

Repetitious and not very funny

Meh. Most of the book is meh. A few of the responses were good. One business plays along and a few are superbly humane in trying to accommodate. Those responses made me feel good, but they weren't funny. This review is meh and so is the book.

Somehow, I believe I should have found these letters -- written to various companies and individuals, including the King of Tonga -- about a variety of unusual subjects and situations (leaving behind a personal collection of otter hair, asking permission to bring his personal collection of 2200 red ants, offering a collection of Mickey Mantle toenail clippings to the Baseball Hall of Fame, asking to wear the costume of a rotting radish on a bus, etc.) -- more amusing than I, in fact, did. Some of the letters are genuinely funny; some of them merely induce eye-rolling. The responses, for the most part, are fairly straightforward: not all the requests, however outlandish, are granted, but only one of them seemed to take the initial correspondence less than seriously. Read this at your own risk.

If you've never come across Ted Nancy before, go now and find Letters from a Nut. Whoever is behind "Ted L. Nancy" really is a nut and more's the pity to any of the victims of his nuttiness.

Found this in the library book sale pile and was attracted to it because it mentioned Jerry Seinfeld in the corner (who only wrote an introduction to the letters in the book). I was delighted to find it to be a collection of correspondance in business letter format. 5 minutes into what was supposed to be a cursory glance to see if I wanted it, I was laughing so hard (in the library) that I made a complete fool of myself. I was clutching my stomach and laughing uncontrollably. I immediately purchased the book and brought it home to share with my 9-year-old son, who was soon joining me in painful fits of laughter. It ended up having medicinal qualities to it because my son's painfully plugged up ear finally "popped"(if that isn't the ultimate praise for a book, I don't know what is)!

Seriously, reading this book was equivalent to the abdominable workout I should have been doing in its place because I was in a fit of laughter for over an hour as I read the entire book. I can't WAIT to read the original!

I had read More Letters from a Nut first, and either that collection of letters was exponentially more funny or one can only handle so many jokes from the same voice. But, since I can still laugh just as easily at the millionth Golden Girls episode as I could the first, I think the problem is the latter. These seemed to be formulaic and few of the responses were genuinely funny. My stomach muscles DID ache after fits of laughter when reading this one, but only when I was almost finished with it. I'd say there are about 5-10 excellent letters, all in the last quarter of the book. If you didn't love this one, don't give up; the second volume (More Letters from a Nut) is much better.

This is a hilarious collection of letters written by Ted Nancy to different businesses regarding fictitious, ridiculous requests/complaints/comments and the equally funny letters sent back to him.

Letters from a nut was a really good book it was very funny. Like in one letter he said that he had three legs and needed special care in his hotel room that really cracked me up. It is a very very easy read there is no plot line because it is just letters in hotels and companies. The letters are written by Ted L. Nancy. He is a really good writer and knows how to write a good persuasive letter. Over the entire book is a great book. If you are in the market for a funny short read the does not have a plot than you have found your book.

Letters from a Nut by Ted L. Nancy
Why I picked up this book: I went to a warehouse book sale that sold tons of books, both hardcover and paperbacks for $0.99. I flipped through it and it looked like something I’d like.

Why I finished this book: The author of this book wrote tons of letter to various business representatives and some government officials, for a variety of issues. I chucked a couple of times and wanted to put the book down but I had to keep reading to see what ridiculous issue he brought up and how they responded to his letter. For the most part I think they responded with good and professions communication skills.

Thoughts: Overall, I got a kick out of some of the letters he wrote and really liked how they responded to his asinine letter. People really are difficulty to deal with sometimes and this book showed me how people can deal with wired request in a professional and respectful way.

Rating: It was not my favorite but I couldn’t put it down until I was all finished so I didn’t miss something that would make me shake my head and chuckle sometimes. I’d give it a 3 out of 5 star rating.

Even More Letters From a Nut is an even more hilarious book than his first (Letters From a Nut). Ted Nancy poses questions to companies and leaders, not only cross-nation but cross-country, that no one would think of asking or evening expecting a response back from. It is amazing how diplomatic companies try to be to keep customers in there pockets. I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants a good laugh.

Ted Nancy ask the questions to businesses that we all want to ask but no one does.."Have you seen my missing tooth?".."Can I wear my lucky shrimp costume while gambling at your hotel?" The book is filled with letters and questions to various hotels and business. The majority of the businesses write back with honest and diplomatic answers. This book in hilarious. Kudos to Mr. Nancy for his imagination on coming up with the most absurd requests. I look for to reading the other editions of these books.

I read this years ago and just remembered it the other day. If I recall, I think there was speculation that Jerry Seinfeld actually had ghostwritten it. I think there may have been a foreword by him or he had "discovered" it.

I thought it was amusing at the time. With the book being just a series of letters an not connected, it's fun to pick up now and then when a quick laugh is needed.

This book consists of completely absurd letters written by Ted L. Nancy to all sorts of businesses usually making strange requests, such as wanting to eat outside by the garbage bins because of his overwhelming body odour, noting odd compliments such as the kind efforts of the staff at a hotel in finding his lost tooth or even making bizarre requests such as a 59 foot by 22 foot bologna! Each letter is accompanied by the business’s reply showing that in most cases his weird letters were taken mildly seriously. The Introduction by Jerry Seinfeld provides some needed context, however leaves the reader wondering if Ted L. Nancy actually exists of if he is simply a pseudonym for Seinfeld himself. Some letters are laugh out loud funny while others are disturbingly creepy, but what makes the book is that the businesses chose to validate these strange letters with responses that are at times equally strange. A humorous read, but not a must read.

The premise is fairly simple. A man writes outlandish letters to big institutions, and records their often even more absurd responses. The funniest replies are when the organizations struggle to give the writer the benefit of the doubt -- that his questions are not absurd, and that he is simply very passionate rather than certifiable.

This guy is awesome. Case in point; He writes to Degree Antiperspirant; "...It says that your deodorant 'keeps Your Underarms Cool and Dry'. Then I look at a package of Rigatoni Parmesan cheese and it says "Store in a Cool Dry Place" What gives? I'm confused. Should I store my Parmesan cheese under my arms?'

The only reason I don't give this five stars, is because the letters he gets back from the companies he writes to are mostly bland corporatespeak. Guess they didn't know a good thing when they saw it.

It is an unusual book. It made me want to go and try it. I also like what Seinfeld had to say about him. Did not realize there were more of them. How fun!

This book is like nothing I've ever encountered before. The author makes up letters pretending to be various wacky people in distress, or having odd requests, or wanting to make marketing suggestions- to huge corporations, famous people, large establishments, ritzy hotels, etc. The crazy thing is that then he mails them off- and more often than not, gets a response that tries seriously to deal with the customer service problem he presents. I have to admit some of the premises were rather lame, and a lot of them are repeated with only slight variations. But I read at least half of the letters out loud to my husband, and we laughed ourselves silly over it.

from the Dog Ear Diary

ROFL. That is the best way I can describe this book. My family got tired of hearing me burst out laughing that they forced me to read these letters out loud. That in turn made them even funnier as we all laughed together. Something about these is irresistible and I just can't seem to get enough. My personal favorite: writing a casino to make sure he can wear his lucky shrimp costume while gambling.

Such an odd book. It often made me laugh outloud. What a clever idea.½

I found some of the letters funny, then they just became repetitious.

Ted L. Nancy’s Letters From a Nut is truly the product of a deranged mind. The premise of the book is that a guy living in Thousand Oaks, California has taken it upon himself to write a bunch of letters to actual American corporations inquiring about odd matters or seeking special accommodations or praising them for strange aspects of their service. There’s not really much more I can say by way of a summation, but here are some examples of his correspondence:

• A letter to the Bon Ami Cleanser Company asking what exactly they mean by “integrity” on their label.
• A letter to Highlights Magazine asking if they would like to include a picture of his freckles that “kinda look like Richard Gere.”
• A letter to the Portland Stage Company to find out if they would be willing to host a play about his 26-year-old dog Cinnamon
• A letter to the Ralston Purina Company praising their product in prolonging the life of his 26-year-old dog Cinnamon.
• A letter to Nordstrom’s inquiring if he can buy a mannequin that he saw that looks exactly like his recently-deceased neighbor.
• A letter to the Flamingo Hilton Hotel & Casino asking if he can be allowed to wear his lucky shrimp costume while gambling there.

And so on. The more incredible part is that he actually gets responses from almost everyone he contacts. Most of the responses are just deflections of his odd requests. Some, on the other hand, are more than willing to entertain his outrageous scenarios.

While there are times when it feels like he’s trying out different variations of the same joke to gauge the response, some of the letters actually laugh-out-loud funny. These would probably make for a cocktail party gag where people had to read them aloud to the group. It’s a quick read to maybe lighten up some of the more heady stuff that comes out these days.½

Three volumes of Ted L. Nancy letters may be just one too many. While the content of Extra Nutty: Even More Letters from a Nut remained amusing, I didn't laugh nearly as much at these as I did at the letters in the first and second collections. I should probably have allowed more time to elapse between readings, maybe my feelings are the simple result of a slight Nut overdose.

Jerry Seinfeld (the assumed author of these books) provides the "backword" to this one, in which he writes his own Nancyesque letter to Mr. Nancy.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2008/04/book-review-extra-nutty.html½