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Other People's Rejection Letters - Relationship Enders, Career Killers, and 150 Other Letters You'll Be Glad You Didn't Receive
edited by Bill Shapiro
Clarkson Potter/Publishers
ISBN 978-0-307-45964-0
Published May 2010 - Hardcover - 192 pages - $22.50

Being turned down, for whatever reason, usually isn't nice.  Nice perhaps for those who tried to book a passage on the Titanic only to learn it was fully booked.  Rejection isn't nice but it's something that happens to nearly everyone, at least once or twice.  Us writers are gluttons for punishment, and thankfully, I don't keep my letters of rejection.  I try and move on.  However, Bill Shapiro has collected lots of rejection letters belonging to various people we might have heard of.  Comforting, kind of, to read about the rejection of the likes of Gertrude Stein and Jimi Hendrix.  Some letters are on official letterheads or on post-it notes, some are handwritten or typed on computers, and even some on old typewriters.  There are also some text messages.  And they span decades, so rejection is nothing new.  Basically, it's supply overwhelming the demand in the case of business position rejections, and where diplomacy could take a lesson on courtesy.  Not all letters are from businesses, there are also break-up letters and heart-tugging letters from children to their parents.  In the case of this book, "rejection" covers a very wide array of possibilities, some bringing a smile to your face.  I hope that Yale University by now has a decent printer!
Visit the website at www.otherpeoplesrejectionletters.com.
Conclusion - Fun, if not a little intrusive.