Dear Committee Members

The book is a series of letters telling the story of a English professor. The letters of recommendations were hilarious to read. I never thought about the fact that when students ask for a letter of recommendation, they don't know exactly what is said!

Entertaining, best in 10-12 page doses since book is in form of letters by professor to various colleagues, many of whom will be receiving a recommendation regarding a former student. Reader's background in higher education enhances pleasure. There are some very amusing missives. The institution is familiar and appropriately named Payne University.

I found it so refreshing, accurate, funny, and poignant. For a faculty member at modern Languages at UM that was recently let go because "business and Law have deficits and we all have to make sacrifices for the common well" I found it so relevant at times where liberal Arts is not taken seriously anymore at American universities.

I’m not usually a big fan of epistolary novels, but this one is sped along by the good company of Professor Jay Fitger, who’s a curmudgeon with an underlying romanticism and optimism. A lovely way to spend an afternoon...

Smart satire in this novel that takes us inside the world of an English professor. Just when you think you know the letter writer the author pops in a couple of great surprises. I loved this story--a very fast read!

The protagonist professor is smart, funny, like able, insightful about academic environment and students. Enjoyable reading. Some unsatisfactory aftertaste, though, bc not much indication of the outcome of his letters.

This novel has a clever structure and keeps the reader involved.. The character of the protagonist is revealed over the course of the book. The best feature clearly is the hilarious recommendation letters themselves. For anyone who has experience writing such letters they will resonate--I had more than a few laugh-out-loud moments. I am not sure the humor will be as evident to non-academic readers.

A very clever idea, well executed. I was an English major, and I love letter-writing, so this resonates with me. I suspect, however, that it takes a letter-writing one-time English major to really enjoy this book.

Review were good for this 'hilarious' book so I bought it expecting something Erma "Bombeck-ish" - big disappointment. Book about a disgruntled English professor who spends most of his time writing letters of recommendations for former students. I didn't find the letters funny; they were mostly sarcastic and annoying. I was bored and irritated from start to finish. Read at your own risk.

Twenty years ago I had read Richard Russo's Straight Man, a story about a worn out professor-turned-reluctant English Department chair, with great interest, and found it highly entertaining. Having been a department head at the time, the book really resonated with me. When I learned of Julie Schumacher's Dear Committee Members, I thought "What a great idea for a novel," and I had hoped I'd be equally entertained, as I've written many letters of recommendation over the decades and, also like the character in the book, dealt with a head of my department from another discipline (who replaced me after I stepped down) when administrative functions were merged to save money.

Instead I find the main character in Dear Committee Members, a cranky professor of English in a second or third tier Midwestern university, to be a more or less a smart-ass jerk of an academic. I wonder if Schumacher, an academic herself, intended that or actually thought the character was lovable in his own way. At any rate, I see enough of them around in my everyday job.

Most of the book is written in the form of letters of recommendation from the professor for his English-major students seeking two-bit jobs that have no ties to what they've learned. The real-world absurdity of that task comes across very well. But beyond that, I see little of value or interest. I really didn't care about the main character, despite all his asides about his accomplishments, sex life, and what have you in the letters. I started skimming the book by page 80. I just didn't find it funny or him endearing, and I'm a seasoned and largely cynical academic myself. Dear Committee Members didn't make me laugh, and, just finishing my own academic year and beginning my summer break, I was really hoping for at least a good chuckle.

If you have ever had any connection to academia, you cannot help but relate to this very funny epistolary novel of mostly student recommendations that define the world of a creative writing professor.

Amusing, but not quite the sharpest satire I have ever heard or seen about reference letters, so the book left me somewhat disappointed. On the whole though it was amusing and so I viewed it as a light-weight read.

Unique format and clever writing make this an enjoyable read. I would have liked a bit more depth than the format permitted, however the humor and humanity offer the reader a sense of connection to the beleaguered professor that makes it work.

Unique format and clever writing make this an enjoyable read. I would have liked a bit more depth than the format permitted, however the humor and humanity offer the reader a sense of connection to the beleaguered professor that makes it work.

Upon realizing that this novel is entirely epistolary I shuddered at the obvious conceit and prepared myself for ennui and "buyers remorse"..... but I was wrong. This is a delightful and thoroughly engaging word-portrait of main character. He is a curmudgeonly, sesquipedalian, self-absorbed professor of English and Creative Writing whose character arc is masterful. We, the readers, are in the rare position of really knowing more about the professor and his motivations than he knows himself, and his true character, history, and ultimate self-redemption are revealed through his own letters (which are extremely creative and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny). A further treat was the author's liberal interspersing of words from the professor's prodigious (but never gratuitous) vocabulary that I (an MFA in creative writing) had to look up. I highly recommend this book and am looking forward to Ms. Schumacher's next literary kinder surprise!!!!

This book was mildly amusing in its presentation of letters written as references for students or faculty by an English professor. They are sometimes letters one wishes he could write but wouldn't dare. It also reveals some of the internal politics of a university. However, it became tiresome after a while, and didn't seem to shed any new light on the subject. This is a novel, but there was no real character development or plot arc. A mildly amusing read.

Funny for three pages, then annoyingly repetitious in manner and style...not terribly funny at that and not really a novel at all but rather a theoretical collection of letters of recommendations connected only by virtue of the authorship by a single teacher. Pick it up in a book store and read three or four (they're typically short) and put it back on the shelf in exchange for something more worthy of your time and money.

Well-crafted and unflinchingly human, Dear Committee Members is painfully funny. It captures some the hilarious ironies and contradictions of faculty life and then reflects them back as in a funhouse mirror, exaggerated, but all too recognizable.

Working in academia, I could totally relate to the byzantine regulations and constant, ongoing construction endured by the hapless protagonist of this tale. Told through a series of hilarious letters of recommendation, we learn about his life, his failed career, and the machinations at the third-tier University where he toils away in the English department. I snickered throughout.

This is a quick and hilarious read. Anyone who has spent any time in Academic Hell will recognize the very contemporary problems and situations reveled through a book long series of letters, written by Prof Fitger (a very clear play on the word "Finger", which Fitger seems to be raising in salute at the end of every letter). While they are alleged letters of recommendation to his various grad students, they also carry his anger with the shifting changes in Academic priorities, allocation of campus funds, promotion and hiring practices, and attacks,on the very businesses the letter recipients are applying for. Through his unrelenting crusade to help his students (even ones he doesn't like--and says so!), the "plot" of the book unexpectedly unfolds, with an unexpected (and too abrupt, alas!) ending. I wanted to hear more from this guy. I was just starting to like him when the book ended. Now I'm eager to read the author's next reveal!

If you teach at a university, this book is required reading. And if you don't, you're likely to love the book anyway. Sentence to sentence, it is funny and amusing, but as you pass from letter to letter, you begin to see that there is something profound going on. I loved this book, was moved by it, and was sad and shaken when it ended.

As a retired university professor, as well as wife, daughter, mother, mother-law, sister and aunt of university professors, I can say that Schumacher captures the world of academe beautifully. And the book has the added advantage of being fun to read.

Ms. Schumacher has a gift for delightful phrases, and those in the academic community are sure to love this book. I understand from my friends that many of the absurdities that confront academics daily are accurately depicted.
For those outside of academia, however, this book is of less interest. In format, the book is a series of reference letters written by a professor. The reader tracks the career developments and disappointments of students, friends, and the professor, with digressions for facility problems. Because of his many gaffs, it's amazing that he survives. I guess that's tenure for you.