In Are You Getting Enough?, Ben Aitken dives headfirst into the art of fun, tackling everything from lawn bowls to cold-water swimming in a bid to banish the blahs and reclaim his zest for life. With a mix of British wit and endearing honesty, Aitken explores the highs and lows of forcing oneself to have fun—even when it involves wakeboarding or improv. Through his year-long quest for joy, he reveals the surprising magic of simple pleasures (bingo, anyone?) and the true value in simply trying to enjoy life. Hilarious, relatable, and oddly inspiring, this book is a delightful reminder that maybe we should all be making a bit more time for fun.

This wasn’t really what I thought it was going to be. I think I was expecting a sort of funny and silly Danny Wallace type story and it was just a really short quick read for me that didnt really do much for me and definitely didn’t go off on any crazy Danny Wallace type adventures. Not a bad book but just not great for me. An easy quick if slightly boring for me read but definitely not what I was expecting!

At first I wasn't taking to this book – the efforts to poke a dig at the Wallaces, Hawkeses, Gormans et al a touch too heavy, the whole description and oomph of defining the purpose of these proceedings far too woolly (and the author's style of using so many brackets too OTT (damn)). But before too long the author's seeming shtick ran to front the pack and after that it was a pleasant race to watch. I think there is definitely a place for how our man seems to want to grow old before his time – previously he lived through copious coach trips, here he tries crown green bowling, bridge and cryptic crosswords (among many other things (of course)) as he tries on for size as many ways as he can to find an elusive sense of fun.

Fun being very subjective, he does things that clearly aren't going to be fun – volunteering in a charity shop, sitting in public doing sod all, etc – but even those can be interesting to read about. Enjoyable to read about. Fun to read about? Well, again – that's clearly going to rely on your own opinion. And he does actually justify how he finds the fun in such things, which is pleasant. You're willing the fun to be there, of course – a book about the lack of fun for a year would be a return to that there misery memoir genre, which nobody in their right mind wants.

Ultimately this seems to fit into the halfway house between a straight-up diary and one of those self-imposed-quest travel books the aforementioned knocked out (and peppered said charity shops with). He goes here and does this, tries that, and the bruising, face-planting and so on count only goes up. He needn't have done any of it, so it is just larking about for material for a book, but inasmuch as there is little that we can take from this and apply to our own lives, it's not unenjoyable to discover this.

Oh, and to discover "semi-octagonal roofs", which I would have thought were perhaps square. Three and a half stars – four does seem too generous.

We all need to unwind from the stresses of the world around us, and Ben Aitken is on a mission to work out what makes something fun. After all, there could be so many fulfilling activities that he’s missing out on.

I was first drawn into Aitken’s take on the world with his marvellous The Gran Tour, and I’ve swiftly devoured all his other books. Here Comes the Fun was not only amusing but at time poignant and utterly irresistible due to his successful and not so successful adventures. You never know what will bring you enjoyment until you give it a go. And reading about Aitken’s attempts was an entertaining few hours.

You won’t regret spending time in Aitken’s company.

The author of this book decided to try a bunch of new things to push himself out of his comfort zone. Each chapter is a new sort of activity and wacky antics ensue. It’s not badly written it’s just not overly interesting and I had to give up and mark it DNF around 75% unfortunately.

Very interesting premise - what is fun and how do you have it?
Some parts of the book are very funny, others really make you think.
Overall, an excellent read

My thanks to NetGalley and Icon Books for a copy of “ Here Comes The Fun” for an honest review.

This was a joy of a book to read!
I’d enjoyed a previous book by Ben Aitken , “ The Gran Tour” and found it very humorous and relatable.
This latest describes a year spent researching the things people do for fun, and we get to meet some great characters along the way.
It shows that sometimes you need to take a leap of faith, and try out new things , you just might have fun doing them !