How could you refuse the polite invitation of begoggled Danny Wallace in Join Me? You don't know what you could be missing out on. It's all about living for the moment in this quirky, seemingly pointless yet addictive narrative. Finding himself with too much time on his hands after quitting his BBC job, Danny revels in "sitting around in his pants" and generally taking a break from the responsibilities of working life. Danny attends the funeral of his great uncle Gallus and finds out that he had set up a commune of like-minded people to escape Swiss small town small-mindedness in the 1940s. Intrigued by this idea, on his return to London Danny places a cryptic advert in the classified ads paper Loot and gets some surprising results.
His Norwegian radio-producer girlfriend Hanne is bemused and infuriated that this has become more than a transient interest; it takes over his life--and hers. The number of "joinees"--people replying to his ad--escalates as word gets out about this new "happy cult", but without a clue about what he wants to achieve, or do with all his newfound friends, Danny has to think fast as dissent rises in the ranks. Now the reluctant leader of a troop of random hopefuls, he maintains their interest with obscure e-mails and watches as his joinees meet and bond.
Whatever he had created, it was bigger than he had anticipated. From an initially puerile idea, it had grown into something of a social experiment--why were people willing to take the risk? What was lacking in their lives that they thought they might get out of contacting a stranger? Taking risks, no matter how big or small, is the essential crux of the matter here and of course, nothing ventured, nothing gained. --Angela Boodoo
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
contrived and pointless zaniness everything about danny wallaces projects seems very contrived, and false, it fairly obvious he approaches everything in a much more cynical way then his writing suggests, it seems much more likely he sits donw and thinks about the slimmest possible concept that he can get a book or tv series out of, the writing is of a very sixth form comedy style, and he realy forces up the word count to squeeze a book out of this material.
having somehow managed to get through the whole thing, i found it completely... more info
A good man to share a pnit with but not a good writer I was really excited to get this book having read the reviews. However, although I found the concept amusing and genuinely laughed out loud at some observations, usually the relationship ones, Danny is not a good writer. The prose is overly wordy for my liking and simply not tight enough to the extent that I have added this book to my very small " will never finish" pile of books. I have no doubt that an evening down the pub with Danny would be very funny indeed, he loves people and shows genuine affection... more info
funny I think it's really funny, it seems just about all the other reviewers do as well. It probably won't take you long to read, the worst thing to happen if you do read it is you may lose bladder control while your laughing.
By the end you'll feel reassured in the goodness of people.
Be in The Collective, become a Joinee today! Danny Wallace, until recently he was more famous as Dave Gorman's sidekick - but now he is a regular face on TV. This book is in the same sort of genre as "Are You Dave Gorman" which Danny co-authored and tells the true story of how Danny Wallace starts a cult by asking people to join him.... ...And people do! They have no reservations and hand over their faith to join a man in an unknown crusade. After having people join him, Danny decides what to do as the leader of a cult and comes up with the... more info
