Join Me by Danny Wallace

[Janet]

 

Join Me by Danny Wallace

 

The 'blurb'

Bored, Danny Wallace placed a whimsical small ad in a local paper, saying simply 'Join Me'. Within a month he was receiving letters and e-mails from strangers all over the country, eager to sign up.

 

Teachers, mechanics, sales reps, vicars, schoolchildren, pensioners - all pledged allegiance to his cause. No one knew what that cause was. Least of all Danny...

 

Soon he was proclaimed Leader. Increasingly obsessed, and possibly power crazed, he risked losing his sanity and his loyal girlfriend. But who could deny the attraction of a global following of thousands of devoted joinees?

 

If only he could come up with something for everyone to do!

 

Danny travels to Switzerland to attend the funeral of his Great-Uncle, Gallus and whilst there he discovers that in the 1940s, Gallus had tried to start a commune - and had ended up with just three members!

 

Inspired by this, Danny decides to form his own cult 'collective' as a tribute to Gallas, and so he places an advert in a London paper paper with the words 'Join Me' and a box number to send a photograph to. He is amazed to get a reply a few days later, and slowly people start to join.

 

Danny has one stumbling block, his girlfriend Hanne, who doesn't approve of his lifestyle and would prefer that he had a 'proper job', but Danny becomes obsessed with finding joinees - first he wants 100 and then later aims for 1000. Will he manage this challenge, and will the long-suffering Hanne still be there at the end of it?!

 

This is the third of Danny's books that I've read so far. I didn't think it was as funny as Friends Like These, but it was funny and enjoyable, and I love the way Danny writes. I'm looking forward to trying Yes Man at some stage (and no, I haven't seen the film).

 

Did I join Danny? Of course I did! Oh, and by the way, your hair looks lovely today!

[BookJumper]

Another fellow joinee (I know of another two on here)!? This just goes to show what an amazing bunch us BCFers are I loved Join Me!, it's the first book I ever read by Danny and I found it so funny and inspiring, I just had to have two copies - one has followed me to Meets since 2005 and is signed & dedicated by the Leader and a whole lot of joinees, and the other's for lending around and spread the lurve!