Matt Beaumont

Advantages: Just as funny and entertaining as the first.
Disadvantages: Too short

...Well my little Bookworms I can only say that when I opened the package from amazon.co.uk I felt a mild stab of disappointment. After the magnificence and dare I say it...length of the first novel this second effort from Matt Beaumont is a puny excuse for a book. The E Before Christmas looks more like a pamphlet then the sequel to Beaumont's debut, at only 128 pages long it feels decidedly flimsy. Still despite this I couldn't wait open it and get started We are again taken back to the Miller Shanks Agency where new CEO Harriet Greenbaum has decided that she wants the Christmas Party to end all Christmas parties. Everyone is still here from the bitchy secretaries to the Coked up creatives as well as some new faces, or e-mails as it were. The format is still the same, and because I had read the first one it was much easier to read. Its... Read review

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Advantages: Great book, easy to read
Disadvantages: None

...Matt Beaumont can’t write. Well, not literally you understand. I mean, this is his third book, and you’re unlikely to get even the one book published if you cannot write. What I mean is that Matt Beaumont seems incapable of writing a normal book in a normal fashion. Take his first book, “e” for example. The entire book is in email format. The whole plot, sub-plot and character description comes via emails that have been sent to, from and around the firm upon which the book is centred. The follow-up, “an e before Christmas” was done the same way and both were enjoyable reads, if a little hard to follow from time to time. Beaumont’s third book, “the book, the film, the t-shirt” follows the same anti-establishment rules of writing. Not that there is even the merest hint of an email here. Instead, each chapter is split... Read review

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Advantages: Very funny and entertaining.
Disadvantages: Slightly difficult format.

...My Rating: Need to Read. If you work in an office you'll love this...If you work for an advertising agency it will become your bible. If you only read one book this year make it E. by Matt Beaumont. This is in my opinion one of the funniest books to come out in the last three years. The first book of its kind. E is Set in the English branch of a worldwide advertising industry and told completely through the medium of e-mails e. spends a few weeks with the employees of Miller Shanks as they desperately try and land the Coca-Cola account. If you work in an office you'll giggle, if you work for an advertising agency you'll kill yourself laughing. Every character in here is recognisable. From the CEO who thinks he's God to the backstabbing secretaries, self important Account handlers and the laid back creatives. You know who they are... Read review

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