Are You Dave Gorman? - Dave Gorman

Advantages: Incredibly funny, easy to read book written in a very accessible style.
Disadvantages: Laughing our loud on buses and trains is not to be recommended! Found in travel section at my local bookshop, not comedy.

Are You Dave Gorman?, by Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace, isn't so much a travelogue as a Quest (with a capital Q) and a tale of just what boys will get up to when a) bored and b) given half a chance (and some tequila). You will, however, find it in the travel section of your local bookshop. The basic premise is simple. Perrier-award nominated comedian, storyteller and writer Dave Gorman wants to meet loads of other Dave Gormans. Mind you, it's not ...
...Both Danny and Dave are gifted storytellers, and both were responsible for many laugh-out-loud moments as I was reading this. Their writing is full of wit, humour and gentle mickey-taking but both cut to the essence of the people they meet - mainly Dave Gormans, but there are some others along the way too. It's the sort of book where you just can't resist reading chunks of it out loud to your nearest and dearest, only for them to give you slightly ... Read review

Advantages: Very funny, Extremely well-written, Great timing
Disadvantages: You won't want to do anything else but read this

...putting stickers on cars, wearing Are You Dave Gorman? T-shirts, getting his quest into the local, national and international press, and much more. Not one moment goes by when he thinks of anything but adding to his DG collection. Danny soon began to wish he’d never made the bet. Not only was he being dragged all over the world in all weathers and at all times of the day and night at a moment’s notice, and only to stay an hour or two ...
...on relationships). We are treated to some marvellous DGs: gay DG from New York who wears very loud shirts and laughs even louder at just about everything, Jewish DG from Israel who welcomes Dave and Danny into the bosom of his family like he’s been waiting to meet them all of his life, and a wonderful violent bouncer DG who paints watercolours in his spare time. Other DGs are so dull as to be just as funny, including a motley collection of ... Read review

Advantages: very funny & intriguing
Disadvantages: nothing really

...funniest moments in the book are when Gorman has dragged his flatmate to some remote area of the world, only to find the DG they are searching for isn't in, refuses to see them, or, worse still, isn't even in that country. The best example of this is when they travel to the south of France where Gorman knows an author lives, but only knows the name of the village. The villagers help them to find his house, only for the author to be back in London. ...
...read; it doesn't take very long to finish, and is a real page turner as you can't wait to see what they will get up to next. It's also nice to see they've included the photographs they took of each person they met, along with the numbers, which not only means you can see who they're talking about, but also proves they've done it, and that he really was as weirdly obsessed as he appears. I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes reading comedy ... Read review

Advantages: Hilarious, clever, utterly stupid
Disadvantages: You may find it all quite pointless. You'd be right

Some people are simply too dangerous to spend any sort of prolonged periods in each other's company - not a homocidal sort of dangerousness, necessarily, just a certain, mad-cap character. Some people do seem to have a worrying talent for obsessing over things which others see as pointless and incidental, and pursuing them to the point of insanity, rather than doing anything that could possibly be seen as "normal". On their own, these characters ...
...how the pair met, we are taken to a late-night lock-in in East London, where, in the midst of much downing of Tequila, Dave imparts one of the numerous facts rattling around his head. Apparently, the assistant manager of East Fife F.C. is also named Dave Gorman, although Danny is reluctant to accept this. Even when he does, he is insistent that it's pretty unlikely that Dave will run into another namesake in his life. Dave retorts; there are hundreds ... Read review

Advantages: You will laugh loads
Disadvantages: A bit of a one trick pony

...name. However, if you are naive of the comic genius that is Dave Gorman, I better explain. The title is a big clue as to what this book is about - “Are you Dave Gorman?” Basically two flatmates – Danny Wallace and Dave Gorman (joint authors of said book) travel up and down the country (and other countries in fact) trying to find other Dave Gormans. This might not sound hilarious, but trust me, it is! The book is told from two perspectives; one perspective ...
...Danny and their other friends are all drunk and telling stories, when for some reason Dave mentions that he is not the only Dave Gorman that he has heard of – there is one in Scotland that used to be a footballer and now was an assistant manager for his old club. Dave also remembers that he once met another man called Dave Gorman when he was waiting for a cab – the other man was also waiting for a cab, and when it arrived and the driver called “cab ... Read review