How to spot the book club scam | Brief letters

‘Fan’ mail | Lessons from history | Natural fabrics | Perthshire pirate Thank you, Joe Dunthorne, for your dogged investigation of the book club scam ( Like many authors, I’m bombarded by scam fanmail. I wasn’t prepared for what would happen when I wrote back, 1 November ). I get

‘Fan’ mail | Lessons from history | Natural fabrics | Perthshire pirate Thank you, Joe Dunthorne, for your dogged investigation of the book club scam ( Like many authors, I’m bombarded by scam fanmail. I wasn’t prepared for what would happen when I wrote back, 1 November ). I get two or three emails like this a month, promising me attentive reading of one or other of my books from 500 members.

Then will follow a request for a modest fee, for “distribution” of my text. I know this, because I once replied. Last week I told “Anna” from Amherst (or was it “Vanessa” from Vancouver?) that I had forwarded her email to report@phishing.gov.uk .

She thanked me for my interest. Carolyn Steedman Leamington Spa, Warwickshire • John Crace – who is always stimulating – says we are in “what is forecast to be the toughest decade for the country on record” ( Digested week, 30 October ). Oh, really?

What about 1925-35 with the general strike, the great depression and the hunger marches? Or 1939-49 with the second world war and its aftermath? Or the soaring inflation of 1970s?

Peter Coltman Leeds Continue reading...