‘Is it good?’ they ask.
‘Well, I’m kinda biased.’
I enjoyed writing DATE (probably more than I did doing the research) and I found great pleasure in sitting opposite someone on the tube the other day as they were reading the book and shaking with what I think was a thorough case of the chuckles, but if you want an honest assessment of whether you’ll enjoy this read, take a look at the reviews on Amazon.
And if you have read DATE, please please write your own review, however you feel about it!
> Read reviews of DATE on Amazon
> Get a paperback
> Purchase for Kindle
For copies of DATE in Paperback, click here
To buy DATE on Kindle, or on the Kindle App for your iPad, phone, Mac or PC, click here
PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE VALENTINES DAY HAS NEVER BEEN SO CHALLENGING: On 14th February the Queen of Hoxton in Shoreditch is breaking out heart-shaped confetti for a Valentines event, with a difference. Speed Dating for Boobies, in aid of breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel, was the brainchild of Adventurer Dave Cornthwaite, a five-time World Record-breaker who has skateboarded across Australia and paddleboarded the length of the Mississippi. But Cornthwaite’s hardest challenge was much closer to home, when he tried to find a girlfriend by attempting to date 100 women in 100 days. He says: ‘I wanted to mingle the launch of my book, DATE, with a dating event that imitated the intensity of my dating challenge. With 50 girls and 50 guys dating each other for just 100 seconds, this is a great twist on speed dating for an amazing cause.’ Another high profile guest on the night is Bonita Norris, who has skied to the North Pole and is the youngest British female to climb Mount Everest. But, she says, she’s never been speed dating. ‘I’m apprehensive about going on 50 dates in one night, but I’m not exactly girlfriend material, I spend most of my time living in a tent in very cold places!’ Also dating on the night is multiple ocean rower Elin Haf Davies, and Sean Conway, who is about to attempt the fastest circumnavigation of Earth by bicycle. But, Cornthwaite stresses, you don’t need to be an Adventurer to come along, the event is open to everyone who appreciates a challenge. Tickets are selling fast and with a copy of DATE going to every participant, this is one speed dating event that nobody will leave empty-handed. Tickets are £12, available through www.boobdating.eventbrite.com //ENDS// NOTES FOR EDITORS For more information contact Dave Cornthwaite on dave@davecornthwaite.co.uk or by phone on 07872 986084 Venue: The Queen of Hoxton, 1-5 Curtain Road,
Shoreditch
, London, EC2A 3JX Times: Doors 18.45pm. Event begins 19.30pm. The Charity Web: www.coppafeel.org About Dave Cornthwaite Website: www.davecornthwaite.com About Bonita Norris Website: www.bonitanorris.com Quotes – Kris Hallenga, CoppaFeel founder “CoppaFeel! is a really important campaign to raise awareness about breast cancer diagnosis, so I’m delighted to be able to do my bit for this amazing cause. Guys who I will be looking for on the night will be the most charitable ones - the biggest donation to CoppaFeel! will be the best way of getting my attention” - Bonita Norris, Mountaineer “This event is a win win. Great cause, great fun, and if you’re not enjoying a date it’s fine, because you’ll be moving on in a minute!” – Dave Cornthwaite, Adventurer “Bonita says she’s looking for the most generous guy on the night. I keep telling her you can’t get more generous than organising the whole event, but she just pretends she hasn’t heard me.” – Dave Cornthwaite
CHARITY SPEED DATING EVENT ATTRACTS RECORD-BREAKING ADVENTURERS
Ticket website: www.boobdating.eventbrite.com
CoppaFeel! is a breast cancer awareness charity striving to encourage young people to be aware of their bodies and check their boobs!
Contact: Kris Hallenga - kris@coppafeel.org
An adventurer, author and motivational speaker, Cornthwaite is best known for his Expedition1000 project, twenty-five separate journeys of at least 1000 miles in distance, each using a different form of non-motorised transport. Throughout the project he aims to raise £1,000,000 for charity. DATE is his second book.
Bonita is Britain’s youngest chick to climb Mount Everest, she’s an ambassador for the watch brand TAG Heuer and outdoors brand Karrimor. At the age of 24 she has also skied to the North Pole and climbed some of the highest mountains in the Himalayas, but she has never been speed dating.
“Copping a feel on the first date is never guaranteed but we do encourage partners to get involved with this life saving activity! We’re so excited to host our very first speed dating adventure with Dave and hope it will not only get people talking about boobs, but help us raise money so we can keep talking about it to a lot more people.” 
The ONLY way to spend your Valentines evening. 100 people, 100-second dates, 50 chances to end your night under the…erm…mistletoe?!
Dave Cornthwaite, the Author of DATE, and the marvellous ladies from breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel! would like to invite you to a night of fun, flirting and boob-aware speed dating on Valentines Day, 14th February 2012.
50 girls, 50 boys and 50 super fast dates, this really is SPEED dating!
Included in the price of the ticket is a free paperback copy of DATE, and before the event begins Dave will give a little reading and offer some dating tips to ensure you don’t waste those 100 seconds with the boy/ girl of your dreams.
So, if you’re only vomiting a little bit after that last paragraph, this is the event for you! Sign up now, you won’t regret it!
All profits go to CoppaFeel! to help their amazing work encouraging everyone to get to know their boobs and prevent breast cancer before it’s too late.
See you on Valentines Day!
> Find out more about CoppaFeel!
> Read a sample of DATE on Amazon
This review for DATE was posted on Amazon by someone calling themselves ‘Silverhorse’
Having been recommended `Date’ by a colleague just prior to a Christmas largely spent on Easyjet I downloaded it to my Kindle with no great expectations, because men don’t write about dating,do they? And even if they did, wouldn’t it be in a swaggering, Nuts’ esque manner designed to maximise the lothario reputation of the writer? I have to say that I was pretty taken aback. Having spent much of the last six years with a man who believed that sympathy was just a word placed in the dictionary between `s?*t and syphllis’ and that emotional literacy was a myth created by dungaree clad primary school teachers and Guardian readers, it was something of a revelation to be reminded that there really were men out there who really were searching for `the one’.
This may seem like an odd thing to say about a bloke who decided that going on 100 dates in 100 days was the best way to accomplish this goal, which seems like a somewhat mysogynistic concept to begin with. What about the poor `datees’ who knew nothing of `the challenge’ and who were also just scratching around the internet in hope of finding their soulmate? It is testament to the real likeability of the writer that you don’t simply end up thinking him to be someone who uses genuine people as mere`material’- by the end of the book your sympathies are firmly with Cornthwaite rather than many of the plethora of women that he dates, who range from sublimely described Goddesses that he falls for to the sad, the badly dressed and the socially challenged (most of whom he is generous about, rather than overly derogatory). I won’t spoil the plot, but in the end the hunter becomes the hunted,and the author’s description of rejection and recovery is one of the most moving I have read in recent memory (and I teach sonnets for a living. Sometimes.). If you’re bored of chick lit or fancy reminding yourself of what it is like out there in the land of first dates then this is really worth reading and great fun. Even if you are stuck on endless uncomfortable orange planes in the season of festive fun….
There are multiple factors that impact on a book’s sales on Amazon. Of course it helps if the book is half decent, but a growing bank of decent reviews (with lots of stars!) is the first port of call for many potential readers.
It’s still very early days for DATE, but in two weeks it already has double the amount of reviews that my first book does, and that’s been out since 2008!!!
If you’ve read the book I’d really appreciate your views and thoughts, it makes such a big difference AND it means we can raise some more funds for CoppaFeel.
Here’s the latest review, by a delightful reader named Kim (no, I don’t know her!)
This book came along just at the right time for me, being a little disillusioned with the dating scene and now, thanks to Dave’s brave - and sometimes crazy! - experiences, I feel like I can make a new year’s resolution to face online dating in 2012. Perhaps I’ll even keep a record - a girl’s version of DATE!
Back to the book…if you don’t mind laughing out aloud on the tube and receiving a few strange stares, or reading out extracts to your friends to the point they feel like they know Dave as much as you do, and even if you’re not single - DATE is a must read. It’s not just a dating book: it’s a fantastic insight into how men think and interpret women. Not only funny, it’s poignant, thought-provoking and inspiring. Thanks, Dave…fancy a date?!
> This is an excerpt from DATE, out now on Kindle
I decided that 30 minutes without contact was just about long enough to hang around in the cold for a date that seemed likely not to arrive. Judging by the email I received later, I may have misjudged the situation:
Where were you? I got to London Bridge and tried calling you but I got someonecalled Andrew. The way you behaved last night probably tells me a lot more than I would have learned by actually meeting you. Unfortunately I have concluded that you are impatient (is 30 mins some magic number? - all my friends said “Everyone would wait at least 45 minutes because you know what London Transport is like”). You don’t think (did you even consider that perhaps something bad had happened to me - hit by a car/mugged and phone stolen). You have no common sense (you don’t seem to have taken any practical actions like checking with station staff if there were any engineering works on my line, or any trains cancelled/delayed, or asking around for an internet cafe/booth and trying to contact me). You don’t give people the benefit of the doubt (my first thought when I couldn’t find you was not “he’s stood me up” but “I must have taken down his number wrong” so the first thing I did after walking several times between the two exits was to find an internet point and contact you). Oh, and you were a wimp (obviously got cold and went home).
The whole thing was a massive role reversal - I am supposed to be the irrational strop-throwing female, yet it was me who, despite being completely impractically dressed, was running around taking all the practical steps to try to find you while you were sat at home drowning in self-pity in the warmth.
In addition, plenty of men tell me that I am very punctual and they practically “expect” girls to be “at least” 10-15 mins late for a date because something goes wrong with their hair/nails/makeup/clothing/tights/shoes when getting ready - I don’t think you’re quite appreciating the amount of time/effort us girls take to get ready or you would have certainly waited longer than half an hour. I only regret not arranging to meet one of the other men queuing up to meet me from this site (one was willing to drive from Bristol to meet me!) or spending the evening with my friend who just got dumped after 9 years, or my Granddad who is recovering from an operation, and that I wasted my time on you.
