Review: Dave Gorman Vs the Rest of the World

Dave Gorman Vs the Rest of the World by Dave Gorman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Much as I like Dave Gorman, this is his weakest book to date. Not that it isn’t well-written, just that it’s a bit disjointed and not as “madcap” as his earlier works.

There just doesn’t seem to have the drive of Googlewhack of I’m Dave Gorman, probably as both of them had a deadline he was racing towards. This one is based around a series of meetings he had over some time which happen to have a common theme.

If there’s any build-up, it’s to the game he plays with one individual towards the end of the book who he corresponds with via email in the lead-up. This chapter is excellent, by far the best in the whole book, but it mainly stands out as it’s the most different.

The other pages are all about Dave meeting nice people, playing a game you may or may not have heard of and heading home again. It just doesn’t grab the reader the way his other works do.

It’s a shame as it is nicely written and Gorman’s got a good way with words, while being nicely honest about the foibles of those he meets.

If you need something you can pick up, blast through a chapter of and put down, knowing you won’t get a chance to read it again for a couple of days then it’s fine. The chapters are nicely standalone.

It would pass the time on the beach, and it did make me think how nice it would be to get involved in some kind of games again, too. Having said that, so did the Dungeons and Dragons episode of Community I just watched last night.

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