Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure [Hardcover]

Dave Gorman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2004

If someone called you a 'googlewhack' what would you do? Would you end up playing table tennis with a nine year old boy in Boston? Would you find yourself in Los Angeles wrangling snakes, or would you go to China to be licked by a performance artist? If your name is Dave Gorman, then all of these things could be true...Fuelled by a lust for life and a desperate desire to do anything except what he is supposed to be doing (writing that novel and growing up), Dave falls under the spell of an obscure internet word game - Googlewhacking. Addicted to the game, and gripped by obsession, Dave travels three times round the world, visiting four continents and the unlikeliest cast of real life eccentrics you'll ever meet in what becomes an epic challenge, a life-changing, globe-trotting Googlewhack adventure. A hostage to the vagaries of a search engine, Dave Gorman has become a 21st century Dice Man throwing his fortune to the fates. The only difference is that the dice Dave tolls has 3 million faces...

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Four years ago, after locating 54 people who shared his name, stand-up comic Gorman used that frivolous notion as the basis for an award-winning, one-man stage show and book (Are You Dave Gorman?). Specializing in comedic travel writing, he found an excuse for more globe-trotting when he began google-whacking, or typing two words (such as "Dork Turnspit") into Google's search engine that would return only one result. Google-whacking constantly, he began to meet other google-whackers, from Seattle to Sydney. Soon he had a new stage show, and this book, based on that show, probes his obsession with the word game while presenting the colorful cast of eccentrics he encountered—from a Beijing performance artist to the guy whose house is a shrine to Mickey Mouse. Gorman's gift for siphoning silliness from any cubbyhole has an appeal for many (this book quickly became a U.K. bestseller), but not all readers will be ROTFLMAO ("rolling on the floor laughing my ass off"), as per Internet jargon. The nomadic Gorman does manage to maintain a breathless, high-spirited pace, offering an onslaught of amusing anecdotes and digressive detours along the way. 22 b&w photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When he turned 31, British stand-up comic Gorman decided he wanted to be taken seriously, so he landed a contract to write a novel. He took novel writing so seriously he grew a beard. But no matter how he tried, Gorman couldn't actually write anything. One of his procrastination methods was googlewhacking--a game in which the "whacker" types two different words into Google and tries to get exactly one hit. His first googlewhack, "Dork Turnspit," led him to a site featuring photographs of women with dogs. Gorman found the site so fascinating that he met its owner and then asked the women-and-dogs fellow to find him another googlewhack. And so begins one of history's greatest ventures in procrastination. Over the next weeks, Gorman traveled tens of thousands of miles, everywhere from Columbus, Ohio, to Beijing, China, meeting googlewhacks, trying to string together 10 in a row by getting two new googlewhacks from each person he met. The descriptions of place are sometimes trite and obvious, but Gorman's self-deprecating wit and irrational dedication to his quest make this a hilarious travelogue. For more titles in the emerging "idiotic but charming quest" travel genre, see the accompanying Read-alike. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover; First Edition edition (September 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585676144
• ISBN-13: 978-1585676149
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,568,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A depature from the pressures of life!, January 20, 2005

By 

Roger M. Smith (uk) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure (Hardcover)

On a recent trip to Gran Canaria I planned to unwind, 7 days by the pool, beer in hand, three good books. I read all three but Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure proved to be streets ahead, what a great read! The appeal for me - his adventure being so far removed from normal daily life. This resulted in my imagination being able to wander at great speed. All the 'real-life distractions we fall victim too we're there also. Delightful, entertaining, gripping, a 'can't put it down' book. I am in no way a professional reviewer, just an ordinary bloke who enjoys a good read. Believe me therefore when I say 'this one is a good read'.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate procrastinator, December 25, 2004

By 

Fuat C. Baran "The Biblioholic" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure (Hardcover)

What a fun and funny book. Dave Gorman sets out to write a novel, but one day receives an email out of the blue saying he is a "googlewhack" and so begins his ultimate procrastination in search of ten googlewhacks in a row, taking him across the Atlantic Ocean numerous times and to far off places like China and Australia as he travels some 80,000 miles in a race against time to meet a series of strangers around the world. And along the way he recounts in a very humourous fashion the strange people he meets and the freaky coincidences that occur.

This book had me laughing and reading passages out loud.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Giggling at Googling, September 8, 2008

By 

Bron Mitchell "bronm" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure. Dave Gorman (Paperback)

I'll start with a confession: I suspect that I am exactly the kind of person to whom this sort of book would appeal.

While I don't believe I'd ever do anything quite so extreme to avoid the commitment of writing a novel, I am, nonetheless, a procrastinator at heart. And there is something about books of this genre that makes that little voice in my head pop up and exclaim, "What a cool idea!!" Trying to meet fifty-three other people with the same name as you? Count me in. Travelling around a small country with a large fridge appliance? I'm there. Playing tennis against every member of an obscure Eastern European nation's football team? Why not? Saying `yes' to everything for a year? What an interesting sociological experiment! These are all ridiculous adventures that have led to equally ridiculous but highly entertaining books.

So when I picked up 'Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure', I knew from the start that it was likely to be something I'd enjoy. I wasn't wrong. Yes, Dave seems to have taken procrastination to new heights, and if he hadn't got a publishing deal out of it all then I would be seriously worried about the likely fragile nature of both his mental health and his bank account. But what stops this from being a cringe-worthy and pity-inducing book is his ability to take us inside his head at each encounter with another Googlewhack, and to help us understand the occasionally bizarre thought processes which drive this obsessive quest.

Travelling all over the world, including numerous flights back and forth across the North Atlantic, Dave meets his Googlewhacks and has a brief insight into the different lives of ordinary (and in some cases not so ordinary) people. I could feel the fun and excitement when he played Yankee Grab at a family's Christmas party in Boston. I could feel his squirming sense of discomfort as he sat opposite an 81-year-old Creationist in San Diego. And I could feel his utmost despair in Austin, Texas when within minutes his chain of Googlewhacks disintegrates, prompting him to go out on the town and drink himself into a stupor - one which also involves waking up to discover a tattoo of a fake Texan drivers' license permanently imprinted on his left arm.

Dave might be a chronic procrastinator, but fortunately for us he is also a masterful storyteller. If you're looking for a fun, light-hearted read, enjoy vicarious travel, and aren't averse to a dose of silliness every now and then, give this book a go: it might be the most fun you can have without leaving your chair.