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Dave Gorman vs. The Rest of the World
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So this is our first book review, we should have some more soon as David is reading the two Warhammer 40K novels that we got for free from GW.
You won't find many reviews like this one
on the blog, the book is several years old now, but its subject is pretty relevant
to the club.
I read Dave Gorman vs The Rest of the World slightly more than 2 years ago having bought it
in Southampton Airport on my way to the Summer Darkness
festival in the lovely city of Utrecht. I bought it along with How to be a
Woman by Caitlin Moran (which I also heartily recommend*) and read both books
in the week I was in the Netherlands†.
The basic premise of the book comes from this tweet that Dave posted.
"Does anyone play any games? Real
Life, not computer games. Would you like to play a game?"
A pretty innocuous question but if you have
76,000 followers your likely to get quite a response. Indeed Dave goes on a
epic journey around the UK playing all sorts of boardgames, card games and
sports. Starting off with the abstract strategy game Khet (or as Dave puts it,
Egyptian Laser Chess – which we can all agree sounds far more exciting) and
taking in Ping Pong (or Whiff Whaff if your Boris Johnson), Kubb, Guess Who,
Kensington, Poker, Darts, Settlers of Catan, Bluke, Agricola... and many
more‡. These kind of oddball trips are the bread and butter of Dave Gorman's
books from finding people with his name in “Are you Dave Gorman?” to trying to
cross the USA only shopping in independent stores in “America Unchained”. In
many ways this isn't a book about games but a book about the people who play
games and the places they play them in.
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Khet -Egyptian Laser Chess. Photo from Wikimedia.
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Dave Gorman vs the Rest of the World is a great read,
it is written in Dave Gorman's standard witty style and the characters he meets
remind you how generous and friendly people can be. If nothing else it will
give you a whole load of new games to find out about and that is something we
are all in favour of at Worlds Away isn't it?
*if you enjoy laughing out loud on planes
and having people look at you oddly as a result. Though to be fair people often
look at me oddly even when not laughing at books on planes.
†Trivia - The Netherlands and Holland are,
despite popular misconception, in fact not the same thing. Holland refers to
the two most westerly provinces of the Netherlands, Noord and Zuid Holland. The
rest of the country, including Utrecht, is not part of Holland.
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A layout catch in a game of Ultimate. Photo © Darren Edwards
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‡Personally my favourite is his
description of Ultimate Frisbee, as an Ultimate player myself reading his
description of a whole load of people I know and have played against was very
amusing.
