Appropriately, it’s been over a week since I resolved to write this review. Procrastinating about reviewing a book called ‘The To Do List’…. I think that’s almost Zen.
Expanding his repartee from his standard fare of ‘Lad Lit’, Mike Gayle writes his first non-fiction work about his mission to become a grown up. Apparently being thirty-six, a homeowner, a successful author, married father of two is not, alone, enough to qualify.
‘The list’ (as it comes to be known) is comprised of over a thousand ‘to-dos’ which are to be completed (or, at least, attempted) over the course of a year and are constructed from Mike’s musings over both what he feels is unfinished in his life, and what someone really should have completed by his point in life. The final judges of which tasks are satisfactorily completed at that time are a group of the authors friends known as The Sunday Pub Club.
Obviously not each and every task is described in detail, but enough are depicted (or at least mentioned) to give us a solid idea of the list and of some of the themes that run through it. Organising his life and contacting old friends seem to be the most common of the task in his list and the majority of these are completed with a pleasant blend of sentimentality and humour.
It’s a little overdone in parts (I’d be fascinated to know how many times the word ‘Babe’ is used in the book) but is mostly an enjoyable, though not terribly deep, discourse into a rather unorthodox scheme.
Rating: 
