Title: More Awkward Situations for Men
Author: Danny Wallace
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 280
Rating: 9/10
Danny Wallace is the perfect example of a writer whose personality is his selling point, but that’s okay – he seems like a genuinely nice guy and an entertaining chap to be around, although he does manage to get himself in to his fair share of awkward situations.
Here, he’s dealing with being a parent for the first time, a plumber who refuses to conform to societal norms, his weird friend Colin who gets in to just as many weird situations as Danny, and many, many more.
From what I understand, the book was compiled from a column that he wrote, and so each individual story (about each individual situation) is presented individually and usually only lasts for a couple of pages. But the clever thing here is that the stories are often interrelated, often with recurring jokes or characters. When you think about it, it’s not surprising – after all, that’s how life works, and at the end of the day this is a book about Danny’s life. It’s a good job his life is pretty interesting.
My favourite awkward situations? The one where he had to walk through London wearing a placard and shouting ‘The End is Nigh‘ was pretty good, and so was the story about how a picture of Danny hugging a monkey ended up on billboards across the world. But really, it’s the relatable stories which are best, like his struggle to surreptitiously take a picture in an airport for his Twitter followers. We’ve all been there, man. We’ve all been there.