Date (Confessions of a Temporary Serial Dater) [Kindle Edition]

Having been recommended `Date' by a colleague just prior to a Christmas largely spent on Easyjet I downloaded it to my Kindle with no great expectations, because men don't write about dating,do they? And even if they did, wouldn't it be in a swaggering, Nuts' esque manner designed to maximise the lothario reputation of the writer? I have to say that I was pretty taken aback. Having spent much of the last six years with a man who believed that sympathy was just a word placed in the dictionary between `s?*t and syphllis' and that emotional literacy was a myth created by dungaree clad primary school teachers and Guardian readers, it was something of a revelation to be reminded that there really were men out there who really were searching for `the one'. This may seem like an odd thing to say about a bloke who decided that going on 100 dates in 100 days was the best way to accomplish this goal, which seems like a somewhat mysogynistic concept to begin with. What about the poor `datees' who knew nothing of `the challenge' and who were also just scratching around the internet in hope of finding their soulmate? It is testament to the real likeability of the writer that you don't simply end up thinking him to be someone who uses genuine people as mere`material'- by the end of the book your sympathies are firmly with Cornthwaite rather than many of the plethora of women that he dates, who range from sublimely described Goddesses that he falls for to the sad, the badly dressed and the socially challenged (most of whom he is generous about, rather than overly derogatory). I won't spoil the plot, but in the end the hunter becomes the hunted,and the author's description of rejection and recovery is one of the most moving I have read in recent memory (and I teach sonnets for a living. Sometimes.). If you're bored of chick lit or fancy reminding yourself of what it is like out there in the land of first dates then this is really worth reading and great fun. Even if you are stuck on endless uncomfortable orange planes in the season of festive fun....

I read Dave's book while rowing across the Atlantic. It was a nice distraction reading about all that girls, when all I had around me were three other smelly rowers.
Sometimes I was imagining how perfect would be if I was able to go on a date between the rowing shifts :).

Bloody awesome read. Dave manages to make the ordinary very amusing, and every date is different. Kept me entertained a very long flight, chuckling away to myself. We've all been there, which makes it all the better, reliving all our past attempts at dating too.

Well worth a read to anyone looking for love, and even for those who have found it.

Thanks Dave for making me smile and laugh a lot.