Having badly failed to blog the books that I read last year, I need to make a start to the ones I am rattling through this year. Not a terribly high-brow selection so far but enjoyable all the same.
This one is a bit of a cheat as I almost completed it in 2011, reading the last twenty pages at 1am on New Year's Day. Dave Gorman comes across, as always, as thoroughly likable, a little obsessive and whimsical but aren't we all? In this book he combines his love of playing games and meeting new people by asking if anyone fancies a game. Thousands replied and in some down time between projects he travels around the UK taking on allcomers at whatever game they fancy.
I came away with a desire to play some new games, and to rediscover taht sense of fun in playing games - why do we hit a certain age when we seem to lack the time or inclination to take pleasure in playing for playings sake? (A friend of mine recently challenged me on how much pleasure I experience in life - a question that Wesley apparently asked of his people).
Gorman meets a whole bunch of really nice people in his travels and three slightly odd ones. One of them nearly puts him off asking to play games with people but thankfully doesn't. Sadly it's someone who seems to have some sort of (odd?) faith but even then I am struck by Dave Gorman's compassion in very trying circumstances.
So, a good read. More whimsical than his America Unchained which has interesting observations on the corporate nature of the USA (read last autumn) but just as much fun.
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