Dave S Blog The Book

The Book of Dave

The Book of Dave is Booker-shortlisted author Will Self's dazzling sixth novel What if a demented London cabbie called Dave Rudman wrote a book to his estranged son to give him some fatherly advice? What if that book was buried in Hampstead and hundreds of years later, when rising sea levels have put London underwater, spawned a religion? What if one man decided to question life according to Dave? And what if Dave had indeed made a mistake? Shuttling between the recent past and a far-off future where England is terribly altered, The Book of Dave is a strange and troubling mirror held up to our times: disturbing, satirizing and vilifying who and what we think we are. At once a meditation upon the nature of received religion, a love story, a caustic satire of contemporary urban life and a historical detective story set in the far future - this compulsive novel will be enjoyed by readers everywhere, including fans of Martin Amis and Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. 'Vivid, visceral and breathtakingly ambitious, this is Self's best yet' GQ 'Mindboggling ... darkly hilarious ... A fascinating book' Evening Standard Will Self is the author of nine novels including Cock and Bull; My Idea of Fun; Great Apes; How the Dead Live; Dorian, an Imitation; The Book of Dave; The Butt; Walking to Hollywood and Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He has written five collections of shorter fiction and three novellas: The Quantity Theory of Insanity; Grey Area; License to Hug; The Sweet Smell of Psychosis; Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo; Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys; Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe and Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes. Self has also compiled a number of nonfiction works, including The Undivided Self: Selected Stories; Junk Mail; Perfidious Man; Sore Sites; Feeding Frenzy; Psychogeography; Psycho Too and The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker.

Planetwise

"This is not another book on green issues to make you feel guilty. There is hope. God can take your small and insignificant efforts and multiply them in his great plan. Besides honouring Him, living simply can be an exciting adventure."--BOOK JACKET.

Dave Knight, a young Christian minister accepts the assignment to pastor his first church unaware of how deeply the former minister indoctrinated the church with false beliefs. Hired by Reverend Wiseman Dave's assignment is to discover what has caused the church to lose members and to return it to a viable church Upon arriving at Midpoint Dave is stranded at the airport due to a sudden illness hospitalizing Reverend Wiseman. As Dave decides to locate a taxi he blindly collides with a young woman: His college sweetheart Shirley Adam. Dave learns she is still unmarried, working as a private duty nurse and that she never received any of the letters he wrote her while he was in seminary. Shirley offers Dave a ride to the church. Touring the parsonage together Shirley's vivacious spirit becomes depressive, Dave discovers a terrible wrong was rendered by the former minister which hurt Shirley so deeply she is reluctant to return to church. As Dave begins his ministry he learns there have been many members of the church who were hurt by the former minister. Determined to right these wrongs, Dave begins to rebuild the church, with his efforts constantly challenged by three of the church's officers. In Dave's attempt to bring the church back to the Lord, he finds no time to court Shirley and risks losing the only woman he loves. As his work hours increases he ignores his body's signals of the on-start of a serious illness. Will Dave loose Shirley, his health and the church? The closing chapters hold the answers to this inspiring story.