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Danny Wallace

Friends Like These Paperback – Address Book, January 1, 2008

by Danny Wallace (Author)

4.4 199 ratings

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Danny Wallace is about to turn thirty and his life has become a cliche. Recently married and living in a smart new area of town, he's swapped pints for lattes and had even contemplated buying coasters. Something wasn't right - he was feeling way too grown-up. Until - Danny finds an old address book containing just twelve names. His best mates as a kid. Where are they now? Who are they now? And how are they coping with this scary concept of being grown-up? And so begins a journey from A-Z, tracking down and meeting his old gang. He travels from Berlin to Tokyo, from Sydney to LA. He even goes to Loughborough. He meets Fijian chiefs. German rappers. Some ninjas. And a carvery manager who's managed to solve time travel. But how will they respond to a man they haven't seen in twenty years, turning up and asking if they're coming out to play? Friends Like These is the story of what can happen when you track down your past, and of where the friendships you thought you'd outgrown can take you today...

Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Ebury
Publication date

January 1, 2008
Dimensions

5.12 x 1.18 x 8.46 inches
ISBN-10

0091896762
ISBN-13

978-0091896768
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ebury (January 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0091896762
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0091896768
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.12 x 1.18 x 8.46 inches

Customer Reviews:
4.4 199 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

199 global ratings

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Kelley Moss

Not figuratively... LITERALLY Laughed Out Loud!!!!!!!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 18, 2013

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This was a random recommendation based on some other books I had liked on GoodReads, and it was SO On The Mark!!! Loved it. This is an author I would love to have a beer with, and I'd buy if he kept telling his stories. Read the excerpts available, if you like them at all, you will enjoy the book even more. I've recommended this book to a few friends, and so far their feelings have been "LOL" all the way.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 22, 2013

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It starts out a little slow but stick with it. These a heart warming "moral" coming about the importance of friends and turning 30!

One person found this helpful

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kirsten

not as good as his other books

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 4, 2013

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Along the same lines as Yes Man and Join Me, but not as funny, and not as great a topic.

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Sam Houston

"Friends are a marker of time."

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 27, 2009

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )

Danny Wallace, U.K. television personality and writer, is best known in this country for "Yes Man," the book on which a recent Jim Carey movie was based. Unlike the movie, however, Wallace's book purports to be non-fiction. He claims to have actually said "yes" to every invitation or opportunity put to him over a six-month period and seems to have largely benefitted from the experience. I mention this to emphasize the kind of wacky personality Danny Wallace seems to have and because "Friends Like These" is another of Wallace's off-center memoirs.

Fast approaching thirty years of age in 2006, the calendar-age Danny Wallace considers the start of adulthood, Wallace finds that he has no desire to become an adult. In fact, the very idea of becoming an adult terrifies him. So when an old address book he hasn't seen in years turns up, it seems only natural to him that he should look up his twelve best childhood friends. After all, they, too, are on the verge of turning thirty years old.

Wallace's task is made a bit more difficult than it might have otherwise been by the fact that he spent some of his childhood years in Scotland, some in Germany, and some in England. Nevertheless, blessed with what seems to be a saint of a wife who encourages him to do it, he confidently embarks on a personal quest to "update his address book" before the birthday that will magically turn him into "a man." How, he wonders, are his friends handling their own personal traumas of becoming adults with adult responsibilities?

On the whole, it appears that they are handling their thirtieths a bit more successfully than Danny is handling his. Despite having been warned that he would find all his old friends working in IT, Danny actually finds them filling a variety of roles. Among his personal Top 12, are a research doctor, a hip-hop rapper, a restaurant manager, a newspaperman, and one old friend who actually does work in the IT department of a major bank. Danny's search, equal amounts adventure and misadventure, will ultimately take him across the world and require stops in the United States, Australia and Japan. Best of all for Danny, is that, for the first time in his life, he will come away from a project with the sense that he has finished something he started - a goal he never achieved as a kid.

Danny Wallace is a funny man, and a clever writer, and he fills Friends Like These with numerous incidents that will make the reader wonder how such a hapless adventurer could possibly accomplish so much. After all, a man who manages to wedge himself so tightly into a tiny Japanese toilet stall (Danny is a big man and he was wearing a backpack at the time) that he has to cry for help before sheer panic sets in does little to inspire confidence, does he?

"Friends Like These" is more than slapstick comedy. Wallace has a way with words that allows him to pepper the reader with little one-line zingers almost at will, one-liners that always produce at least a smile, and sometimes much more. No matter the situation, he maintains his sense-of-humor and laughs at himself as much as his readers will laugh at him. At 400 pages, however, some of Wallace's efforts and friend descriptions begin to become repetitious and hard to distinguish from one another, a flaw that will have some readers wishing that he would just get on with it.

This is a funny book but it does prove the point that sometimes "less is more."

Rated at: 3.5

One person found this helpful

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Christine J. Zegelis

Humorous and sweet

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 6, 2009

Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play by Danny Wallace was just what the doctor ordered! Entertaining, funny and sweet.

The story is simple enough: become worried turning 30 implies becoming an adult, seek to rekindle relationships with those from childhood and find out if they are also feeling a little queasy about the big 3-0. Readers follows Mr. Wallace as he starts his search online posting a profile on Friends United (think Facebook) and searching with last know address, parents name/business and any other discerning characteristic he can remember. He is rewarded and meets with two of the twelve friends being sought and his desire to find the rest becomes an obsession.

It is not the journey that is so entertaining, it is Mr. Wallace's writing of the journey. I literally laughed to tears during some parts inviting stares while waiting for an appointment. I could not help myself. Mr. Wallace includes memories of his childhood including his time attending an American school while living in Germany.

Like every boy who'd grown up in the 1980s, I knew that America was the most exciting and incredible place know to man. It was a giant McDonald's-sponsored adventure playground where the kids divided their time between summer camp and Disneyland.

I think my favorite part of the book is a recollection of a long-ago afternoon spent when one of his buddies brings a cassette tape of Michael Jackson's Thriller.

I wasn't all that interested. My main interest was recording the theme tunes to my favorite shows by placing a tape recorder next to the telly and hitting Record and Play at precisely the right moment to avoid the announcer's voice. I had The A-Team, The Littlest Hobo, Grange Hill, Streethawk, Wac-a-day, Airwolf, everything, I had no time for this other, childish stuff.

But then Cameron flipped open the cassette player and pressed Play. And in that moment everything changed. This was the most incredible music I had ever hear! It told a story! There were sound effects! What the hell was it?

I remember doing that with my tape player/recorder. This is why Mr. Wallace's writing brings such a chuckle. It is easy to place yourself in his shoes though I would not be as amusing. My worries of turning 30 are long gone yet I could completely relate to this story. I recently found a long-lost cousin and friend by complete accident while hanging out online. This has actually had me thinking about who else may be out there?

Danny Wallace is also the author of Yes Man which I have notified my neighborhood second hand bookstore that I want, want, want!

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Philip Mahy

Great Buy!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 22, 2013

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Great Price... Great Condition and great read. To any Danny Wallace fan, this is an excellent book! I recommend fully!

Lawbear

Netter Nostalgietrip

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on April 26, 2009

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Kurz vor seinem dreißigsten Geburtstag bekommt Danny Wallace von seiner Mutter einen Karton mit Kindheitserinnerungen überreicht und beschließt, den längst abgerissenen Kontakt mit seinen besten Freunden aus der Zeit zwischen Sandkasten und Pubertät wieder aufzunehmen.
Die Suche und die daraus resultierenden Begegnungen sind amüsant beschrieben. Ab und zu wird es auch einmal ernster: nicht alle Freunde können gefunden werden; und nicht jeder der gefundenen Freunde möchte den Kontakt erneuern.
Wer ab und zu einmal an die eigene Kindheit und Jugend zurückdenkt und sich fragt, was aus den Freunden von einst geworden ist, wird dieses Buch mögen.

One person found this helpful

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S Bruce

Ever wondered "whatever happened to..?". Then read this book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 3, 2008

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Are you a man around the age of 29? Are you having a strange urge to find out what your old friends from school are up to, and are you worried that it's the beginning of turning 30-something? Well, me too. But now there's no need- you can just read this book instead. Danny Wallace has already done all that, in 2007, and his story is much better than yours, or mine.

Danny goes in search of friends, mainly from primary school, with a very loose premise of 'updating his address book', an address book he's found in a box of old school stuff his Mum kept, though this is just an excuse for a trip down memory lane.

He ends up in L.A., in Japan, in Germany, and around many places in the UK doing all the tracking-down and catching-up that you and I would be doing if we had the time and money.

As well as being laugh-out-loud funny in parts it really is very, very touching, and not nearly as superficial as the premise might have you believe- the book deals with the death of old friends, and explores the need to try and re-contact people and why many people feel that need but some people don't.

This book really will make you want to get onto Facebook or Friends Reunited and track down all your old buddies. I did and I have.

My favourite book of the year so far.

Susan Rose

Another great book by Danny Wallace

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 15, 2013

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I went into this book thinking I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I had 'Are you Dave Gorman?' and 'Join Me', thinking that as the mad cap adventure this time seemed less structured it wouldn't be as much of a page turner. I was both wrong and right, I love this book because unlike his others I've read because of the lack of a defined bet-like parameter, (for example meeting 52 people called Dave Gorman), you get much more of a glimpse into his personality. This leads to a really warm tone and much more of a deeper meaning to the book over all.

If you like either Dave Gorman, Danny Wallace or both get this book. If your a fan of mad-cap adventures with lovely if a little odd characters get this book.
If your worried about growing up get this book.

Everyone else just read it you'll probably like it too.

5 people found this helpful

Steven

A joy from start to finish

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 17, 2008

Verified Purchase

As you would expect from Danny Wallace there is some genuine hysteria here - reminiscing about an unfortunate man whose name was a dreadful variation on `Hitler', impersonating a `furry', making sense of German rap lyrics and general Michael Jackson memories from childhood all had me sniggering, both as I was reading and at various points afterwards.

What I wasn't expecting though was quite how poignant it was at times. There's a few really touching moments, both in terms of what the author finds out during in his `project' and how it's handled in the book. It isn't just a series of funny incidents - it's real, it doesn't always go smoothly, and it asks some pretty deep questions about lost friendships, life and growing up.

Overall though it's just such a brilliantly positive story - a joy in fact.

One person found this helpful

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