Are You Dave Gorman? Reviews

'A true story about two friends, a drunken bet, a 25,000 mile journey - and a lot of people called Dave Gorman'.

Written by comedian Dave Gorman and his best mate, Danny Wallace, this is a truly original and very amusing book.

The first time I ever heard of Dave Gorman was when my husband was given a DVD of Dave Gorman's 'Googlewhack Adventure' show for Christmas. We watched it whilst we both had food poisoning. I have never laughed so much whilst being sick in my life. The man was quite hysterically funny.

We had been on the hunt for his books for a while but we've never been able to find them on special offer and I really resent paying £7.99 for a paperback. Eventually our local library got a copy of 'Are You Dave Gorman?' [which was apparently made into a television series].

The book describes what happened as the aftermath of a drunken night during which Danny Wallace bet Dave Gorman that he couldn't meet 'loads' of other people called Dave Gorman. Having come to the agreement that fifty four Dave Gormans [or 'Gormen' - the plural] would count as 'loads' they find themselves five hours later on a train to Scotland on the way to meet Dave Gorman number one, the assistant manager of the East Fife football team.

The bet soon turns into an obsession involving lies, treachery, car stickers, and a couple who have played Scrabble every lunchtime for the last twenty years. It takes six months and leads them all over the world. They end up caught in a tornado outside New York, selling their shoes for Norwegian tequila and causing a security alert at an Israeli airport. They even encounter a semi-retired lighthouse technician and appear on page 3 of 'The Sun'. Thank goodness they managed to write a book and a TV series about it to recoup some of the costs!

A nice addition to this book is the epilogue, which lets you know what has happened since the bet officially ended [lots of goldfish being named Dave Gorman, etc.].

This is a real gem of a read, which should appeal to quite a wide variety of readers. I would thoroughly recommend it and may even consider purchasing a full price copy myself one of these days!

Published by Random House, 2001.
Paperback.
RRP £7.99