Customer Reviews

Random Acts of Kindness

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Random Acts of Kindness is a nice little spin off of Danny Wallace's massively successful cult (literally and in the definition of cult classic) masterpiece Join Me!. That story was how Danny started his own cult by accident with a simple experiment of placing an advertisement in a newspaper asking for people to join him by sending a photo and seeing what happened). Ultimately he had to make a decision, what would he as cult leader get his followers to do? Evil things? Good things? He decided on good and his followers performed numerous acts of kindness to complete strangers. This little side book is 365 examples of those acts. You should read Join Me first to fully appreciate this but if you just want to motivate others to do something nice, get a better outlook on life or have friends who don't want to read a big non fiction novel then this little gem will suffice on it's own.

Some examples of the random acts of kindness inside are washing your neighbour's cars, if someone cuts you off in traffic, instead of giving them the finger, smile and wave at them like a lunatic. Write to an old teacher and say thanks, give blood, print shirts with someone's face on it as well as banners and organise a night in their honour when they turn up at the pub, compliment a lesbian couple on their haircuts and listen to a story without once interrupting.

Random Acts of Kindness doesn't really show how brilliant a writer and storyteller Danny Wallace is though. Check out Join Me and his masterpieces such as where he along with his flatmate and fellow leading writer in the weird true reality life genre Dave Gorman set out to find and meet 54 other people with the exact same name as Dave Gorman (Are You Dave Gorman?).

Yes Man where Danny takes a vow to say yes to any request for the rest of the year no matter what is asked of him. Plus his contribution to Quick Reads (short stories sold at train stations and other places to encourage people to read books rather than just magazines, graphic novels, newspapers and the like) which was called Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe where Danny travels to and explores the Idaho town of Wallace, which claims to be the centre of the universe.

Danny also has a new book out called Friends Like These which although not up to the masterpiece standard of his previous work is still a very good and enjoyable read as well.

this was a fun book and does review the idea that we can all have more fun and delight in life by doing things that are a little oddball. Even read it twice with about a year between to review some fun ideas

Not being one to fully know (or, perhaps, fully appreciate) English humor, I could never quite decide if Wallace was serious or joking. Help me out here, British folk. Perhaps some serious ideas and some not so?

Give an apple to your teacher.

Leave some fresh
fruit and vegetables
outside a student
house. They will
probably try and turn
it into beer, but at
least you tried.

Resist the urge to kill.

I gave this book to my 15-year-old son, who would rather play X-box games than read - but he really enjoyed it. What better recommendation can you get?

I was given the Original "Random Acts of Kindness" book as a birthday present. I loved it, and quoted from it. It was so well liked by me, that it was stollen from my house! I ordered the same book, I thought, and received this English version in the mail, and was terribly disappointed. Not only have I lost the orginal book, but the new one is filled with English "jargon", which I can accept, but the style of humor is not our style of humor in the USA. I was very disappointed, that I did not receive the Original version of "Random Acts of Kindness" in the mail from you!