Struggling with a little last minute shopping? We thought we would give you a hand with some great gift ideas. And the best part is books are so easy to wrap!

What’s your most Awkward Situation? Tell us in the comments below or tweet us using hashtag #awkward before the end of today to win one of 20 copies of Danny Wallace’s new book, More Awkward Situations for Men.

Last weekend some of the Ebury publicity and marketing teams headed over to Latitude festival in Henham Park in Suffolk.  As well as having a brilliant time seeing bands, listening to great comedy and chilling out around the camping stove, we helped put on some fantastic events in the literature tent, which was practically owned by Ebury authors! Some photos and a round up of the events below: (more…)

There is only one answer when Danny Wallace invites you to a Meet the Author event at the Apple store on Regent Street. ‘Yes!’

Random House teamed up with itunes and Danny to host a Meet the Author session at the Apple store last night. Over 200 people braved the cold to listen to Danny read and chat about his bestselling book Yes Man, which has just been made into a film with Jim Carrey. Danny himself braved an onslaught of weird and wonderful questions from avid fans as well as wearing out his hands with a hugely successful signing of books, laptop covers and till receipts, yes, really!

No need to worry about missing out on the fun. The whole event was recorded and is available on iTunes as a podcast alongside the audiobooks of Yes Man and Friends Like These.  You can also grab an audio extract of Yes Man online here.

Jenni - Audio Editorial Assistant

Danny Wallace mania has been sweeping the nation this week, with the premiere of the movie version of Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey and Zooey (which I finally found out is just pronounced Zoe, confusingly) Deschanel. An overexcited Ebury contingent donned their glad rags and braved the freezing red carpet in support of Danny this week. Jim and Danny and made a grand entrance on top of a double decker bus which drove into a packed Leicester Square. There were swarms of people, and Danny and Jim spent a good half an hour working the red carpet. After being ushered through the pleb entrance (as opposed to the paparazzi one) we settled in to celeb-spot and yam the free popcorn. Jim Carrey was running about being his usual hyperactive self.  The film was a real feel-good movie, and did make us laugh out loud. Danny had his moment of glory as Man at Bar, which went down a treat. The film comes out on Boxing Day, and the tie-in book is in the shops now.

The brand film tie-in new jacket!

Staying with Danny – we recently organised a photoshoot for the jacket of the Friends Like These B format, which is due out in July ’09. This involved a drive-in studio in Holborn and fitting Danny and four of his friends into his Nissan Figaro, which is not the largest of cars. Naturally we put Lucy (a petite girl) in the front and made Wag, Richard and Other Danny wedge themselves in the back. Danny (Wallace) admitted that no-one had ever been in the back of the car before because he didn’t think they could fit (I’m quite glad he didn’t tell me that before the shoot). The boys got cosy and we got some great shots. We also made everyone pretend to be pushing the car, for some action pics, and Danny’s actor friend Richard pulled out all the stops with his posing. The jacket is nearly finished and looks great.What do you think?

Ali -Assistant Editor

A few years ago, Danny Wallace decided to change his life. Where he had once said no, he would now say yes. If he hadn’t started saying yes, he would never have written his very funny (and not just a little inspirational) Yes Man. If he hadn’t written Yes Man, he couldn’t have helped Rory Parle to win a Danny Wallace t-shirt and some lovely badges by sharing his story about saying Yes more. And if he hadn’t started saying Yes, his book wouldn’t now be the subject of a MAJOR HOLLYWOOD MOVIE starring Jim Carrey.

Luckily he did say yes. And he did inspire Rory Parle. And Yes Man really is going to be a major Hollywood movie. It comes out on December 26th. Check out the trailer below. If you’re a big Danny Wallace fan, the new film tie-in version contains a brilliant new chapter telling the story behind the making of the film which is definitely worth checking out.

If you’ve never read Danny Wallace, I can almost guarantee that you will like this book. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t like it. So what are you waiting for? Now is the time to say Yes!

[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aOGXeaujUCE]

Say Yes More

Katie - Digital Marketing Executive

What could be better than reading Danny Wallace’s new book, Friends Like These? Why, having Danny and a goodly number of the friends that he tracked down in the book right in front of your very eyes! And with free beer! So it was for the launch of Danny’s book, at the rather stylish Green Carnation bar in Soho this week, as Shortlist (who Danny writes a weekly column for) and Cobra (who sponsor Danny’s ‘pubcast’) joined forces to introduce Mr Wallace to a swathe of his London fans. All the guests had entered a competition to win a ticket to the event, so were suitably excitable from the off.

The Ebury PR crew did sterling work selling FLT and encouraging people to enter the free raffle to win an iPod and exclusive ‘I’m a friend of Danny’s’ t-shirts – our specially decorated raffle box had a certain whiff of the school fete about it, for added nostalgia. Entering the draw necessitated putting your childhood nickname on the back of the ticket, which was surely a good ice-breaker. Although I’m not convinced I wanted to make a brand new chum out of the winner whose schooltime comrades saw fit to give him the monicker ‘Judas’…

New owners of a copy of FLT had the opportunity to have it signed not only by Danny, but also by stars of the book such as Cameron the Fijian prince (embarrassed in front of a roomful of strangers as Danny read out the poem he’d written about him aged 12), Simon the Toby Carvery manager-cum-Time Traveller, and Anil, who’s apparently going to be representing us in Karate at the Olympics! Seriously, how does a boy from Loughborough end up with mates like that?! The only vaguely exotic friend I’ve got is a girl called Penny, who came over on a school exchange from Australia, whose family own a pearl business (nickname at school: Sheila Boomerang).

We ended the evening having sold loads of books, which I’m sure will mean that Danny has a host of new disciples to spread the lovely, friendly word, and that the Karate event at the Olympics will have a number of curious people tuning in to see if Anil can snag us a gold. Go, Anil!

Alex - Marketing Manager

Last week, The Danny Wallace Appreciation Society on Facebook held a little competition. To win a copy of Danny’s new book, Friends Like These, a beautiful Danny Wallace t-shirt and some lovely badges, people just had to send in a story about what Danny’s previous book, Yes Man, had inspired them to say yes to.

Rory Parle was the winner, and this is his fantastic story:

When I read ‘Join Me‘, shortly after reading ‘Yes Man‘, the power of Yes compelled me to join. Not long after, I said Yes to flying all the way from Dublin to Manchester so I could go to my first meet in Chester, meeting fifty-or-so people whom I’d only ever met before online (the first time I’d ever met “someone off the Internet”).

That ‘Yes’ led me to attend my second meet, in London. There I participated in a Free Hugging event, which loads of people saw and enjoyed and joined in with. One of those people later turned out to be a recruiter from Google.

I had already applied for a job in Google, and my first phone-screen was only days after that Free Hugging event. I was interviewed by a person in London; someone who—out of a city of tens of millions of people—had seen me free-hugging. This discovery really helped to break the ice and boost my confidence in the interview, which I aced. That gave me the momentum to get through the whole hiring process, and I got the job.

Since then, Yes has led me to America (twice), to Egypt, to Austria, to Italy, and many times back to the UK. It’s led me to meet Danny, and his one-time stupid-boy-project partner Dave Gorman. It’s given me a host of new friends, many due to saying ‘Yes’ to go to a party where I knew literally no-one, and many due to my persistence in saying ‘Yes’ to invitations to visit people in the UK.

Just last week I finally brought the free hugs idea home to Ireland. I took part in a hugging campaign to promote an Irish charity called spunout.ie, and ended up hugging not only Ireland’s most popular radio DJ, but also Terry O’Quinn from TV’s ‘Lost’ (who is surprisingly cuddly).

I have yet to say ‘Yes’ to my spam though…