William Kirkpatrick on Reach for the Skies by Richard Branson
Tuesday 14th September

It was riviting and thoroughly intriguing,and having not known anything at all about the history of avaition previously, I feel now I could hold my own in a conversation, and get away with sounding relatively knowledgeable in the subject.

Rob Allwright on Awkward Situations For Men by Danny Wallace
Monday 14th June

According to Torchwood the 21st Century is when everything changes, however that has already happened for men. Even if stereotypical roles in society were wrong at least we all knew where we stood. However in the last 50 years those roles have changed and some men are left stranded not quite knowing what to do and feeling socially awkward. It is some of these areas, and other areas of life, that Danny Wallace is looking to offer comments on as well as stories from his own experiences. Topics include how to walk behind a woman at night, what to do when your wife/partner leaves the last little bit of food on a plate, and what to do when you and a friend say goodbye and turn to walk in the same direction!

Danny Wallace has managed to identify some situations that all men will have encountered at some point, others are relationship specific, but are still also very common. This is where Danny's cleverness comes in, identifying those things that other men will identify with. He doesn't get everything right, but many of these situations will feel familiar.

I like this kind of book. In the past Danny's books have been trying to meet various challenges that he has set himself, but this one is a little different. He's not trying to meet some goal or some self-appointed target, or even trying to better himself, instead he's simply trying to navigate through life as a man!

However I always find something odd in these books. Clearly Danny Wallace is fairly intelligent to be able to put these books together, so why does he seem to become incredibly naive in his stories? This is what annoyed me so much about "Yes Man" when he was talking about getting an e-mail requesting his assistance in a money transfer for which he would be rewarded handsomely. I know it's an image that he is trying to project to make the story funnier, but to me it just makes the whole thing unbelievable and quite preposterous! These situations crop up in just about every story in this book and it's annoying, just be yourself, tell us how you really reacted instead of making up rather daft ideas. Other people who write in this genre don't seem to have this problem. I don't get the impression for one second that Dave Gorman is anything less that an intelligent man, and yet his observations are still funny, so why does Danny feel this is necessary?

If you can ignore this apparently naivety then you will probably enjoy this book, at least if you are a bloke. Whether you ignore that style choice or not you will recognise and empathise with the situations that Danny finds himself in, especially if you are a bloke. It's not the best book of this type that I've ever read, but it's certainly not the worst!