Product Description

When Dave Harding holds his friend's newborn baby, the biological clock he never knew existed starts ticking. Loudly. Which wouldn't be so bad except his partner Izzy has no nine-month plans for fat ankles or trips to Baby Gap. Then the music mag folds and Dave is temporarily forced to become Agony Uncle for 'Teen Scene'. Knee deep in the adolescent outpourings of his readership, Dave opens one letter from a girl who doesn't want advice about boys - she wants to know about Dave. Because she's convinced that Dave Harding is her dad. And she's got the facts to prove it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #421773 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Dinner for Two, the fourth novel from Mike Gayle, is, like its predecessors, a "blokes can be sensitive too" gander at the complicated lives of late twenty/thirtysomething Londoners. Dave Harding is a "serious music" journalist for Louder magazine, a publication "staffed by pro-faced boys who think that the more obscure the band is the cooler they are". When Louder folds Dave finds himself penning articles for Femme, a women's glossy edited by his beloved wife, Izzy, and then lands a job as the agony uncle of Teen Scene, a boy-band saturated magazine for adolescent girls. (Gayle was himself a jobbing journalist and agony uncle and in the interest of realism (or economy) re-purposes some of his own pieces for Cosmo etc. here.)

"Love Doctor" Dave finds, to his immense surprise, he rather enjoys his new career, soon he's dispensing romantic advice to correspondents, friends and colleagues with gay abandon. Since Izzy's recent miscarriage however, Dave has been obsessed with one thing: babies. At 31, he wants, more than anything else, to become a father, that is until he receives an astonishing letter from Nicola, a 13-year-old Teen Scene reader. Nicola claims that Dave is her Dad. After a few clandestine meetings in McDonalds and Burger Kings he's convinced but should he tell Izzy anything? True to his gender he dithers with predictably catastrophic, well, to be completely honest, mildly (and only briefly) unfortunate results.--Travis Elborough

Daily Mail on TURNING THIRTY
'A warm, funny romantic comedy'

Independent on Sunday on MY LEGENDARY GIRLFRIEND
'Full of belly-laughs and painfully acute observations'

Customer Reviews

Incredibly warm and chock full of charm.
As a confirmed Gayle addict, I have been waiting for the difficult second album syndrome to set in with each new novel - surely he must write a dodgy book soon. The odds were therefore high on this, his fourth novel, being crap but I think I love it even more than the others. It's warm and welcoming. Yet again he seems to have written a book that mirrors my thoughts and feelings at this stage of my 30-something life. You find yourself developing a genuine concern for all the key characters in the book and I particularly liked the young girl, Nicola. What a cool kid! I recommend this as the perfect book to read on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
P.S. Top quotes and music references throughout.

Gayle hits the mark again
Having read "Turning Thirty" just before I did, I became a Mike Gayle convert. "Dinner for Two" is not as laugh out loud funny as Turning Thirty, Mr Commitment or MLG but is just as good if not better as an overall read (I was gripped and sat at read it in an afternoon).

Turning 'bloke lit.' on its head to present a character that wanted a child when his partner/wife wasn't that bothered was a clever gamble that paid off. Sensitively written but not so twee that you couldn't believe that the lead guy didn't really exist somewhere. The only problem I face now is that I've run out of Mike Gayle books to read. Mike, can you hurry up and write another? Cheers

Written for and by a 30 something
I was lucky to come across Mike Gayle having had My Legendary Girlfriend recommended to me by the girl who cuts my hair. I bought it, liked it, bought his other 2 books and liked them equally. Dinner For Two was in the shops last Thursday. I bought it and had finished it by Saturday lunchtime. It's not much of a departure from his other books. Mike Gayle writes in an easy, almost chatty style that's easy to fall into very quickly. Being a 30 something the best thing about it is that his observations seem to be mine. He speaks like I speak. He (or more correctly, his characters) whinges about what I whinge about. It's one of those books where you think he must have met you since so much seems spot on. He hasn't, of course. He's just a 30 something too and we're all made from the same mould I think.

Mike Gayle fans won't be disappointed. If you like Nick Hornby, Tony Parsons et al, you won't be disappointed either.