Summary: I think by now pretty much everyone has seen Matt's videos, but if you haven't, do yourself a favor and go watch them. It takes five minutes of your life to watch one of the best things the internet has ever produced, and if it doesn't make you grin like an idiot while simultaneously tearing up a little bit, you should see your cardiologist to find out how your heart got replaced with a lump of cold dead stone.

Anyways, the story in a nutshell: Matt Harding was just an ordinary guy who decided to quit his job in order to travel - and started taking videos of himself doing a goofy dance in front of various tourist landmarks. He cobbled those together into a YouTube video, which attracted the attention of a corporate sponsor, who funded his further travels to make two more videos, during which he made the shift away from dancing in front of things to dancing with other people all over the globe.

This book is a memoir-cum-travelogue, moving roughly chronologically through Matt's travels. Each 2-3 page chapter tells the story behind one of the video clips - travel adventures, how the shot was filmed, backstory, anecdotes, etc., complete with a map showing each location and many of Matt's photos. It doesn't cover every clip, but I'd say it hits at least half of the clips from all three videos. And, along the way, Matt describes how the dancing went from a running gag to a worldwide sensation, and a statement about humanity's inherent joy and silliness and brotherhood all over the world.

Review: I had two worries when I started this book. First, concepts that work on the internet don't always pan out in book form, and in this case, Matt was translating not only from internet to tangible book, but also from video to text. Second, and relatedly, the videos are so wonderful in and of themselves that I was worried that explaining the stories behind them would leach away some of their magic. Luckily, I needn't have worried on either count; the book complements the videos without competing with it, and knowing the stories and significance of the clips actually makes the video more meaningful, rather than less.

The book itself is also physically lovely - full-color maps or photos on every page. It does seem like the production was bit rushed: in several places the typesetting wasn't quite right, and the map showing Kuwait City located in the middle of Iraq is an unfortunate mistake that someone along the way should have caught. Still, the book is a nice addition, providing information and context for the quick glimpses of far-flung locations that we can see in the videos.

Plus, it doesn't hurt that Harding's got a strongly-developed snarky sense of humor, can tell an anecdote well, and has a good sense of cutting right to the important bits. The book is not laden with detail - each chapter and each location only gets a few pages (including pictures) - but each chapter contains enough to give you a sense of the flavor of the place, something in there to make you giggle, and occasionally something to make you a little bit misty... so, exactly like the videos. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Lovely, funny, and surprisingly moving. I think anyone who liked the videos would probably get something out of reading the book, and it's pretty enough (and in short enough chunks) to be accessible to almost every world-traveler, wanderlust-y geek, and unselfconsiously bad dancer out there. ( )

Most YouTube videos are barely worth the time spent watching them and yet the most inane among them can attract millions of viewers. A trio of videos by Matt Harding in recent years, however, are exceptions. What began as a personal souvenir by a silly-dancing traveler grew into two corporate-sponsored trips and a world-wide example of people sharing moments of joy together.

In the “Where the Hell is Matt?” videos, we see Harding doing his peculiar little dance (”I jump up and down and swing my arms”) in front of enchanting and famous places around the world. His infectious exuberance and exotic locales drew a lot of interest from the Internet set when they were released, enabling him to involve many fans and spontaneous dance partners for the third video last year.

Harding’s book about his unique experience, "Where the Hell is Matt? Dancing Badly Around the World", offers stories behind many of the 4-second snippets seen in the videos. He describes his nerves before stepping out onto the Kjeragbolten, a rock set precariously between cliffs in Norway, and the terror he felt surrounded by giant crabs on a Christmas Island beach. He also danced with whales, jellyfish, and the heads on Easter Island. He danced at the Korean DMZ, the Brooklyn Bridge, Machu Picchu, and in zero gravity.

His ability to connect to people through dancing — or jumping up and down — was an even more compelling thread in the book. Sure, he was almost jailed in Athens after dancing in front of the Parthenon and had run-ins with pickpockets and scam taxi drivers. [Which, at times, reminded me of scenes from Into Thick Air, a book I reviewed last year.] But when the camera started and his legs moved, people in nearly every culture enthusiastically joined in: African villagers, Japanese waitresses, Huli Wigmen in Papua New Guinea, and large crowds in cities from Seattle to Madrid.

The book’s chapters are brief and almost always on topic. In fact, I was surprised by how little he described his travel or lessons learned between filming sessions. In a few cases, he seemed alarmingly disinterested in the wonder around him. I’m a birder and took mild offense, for instance, when I read “the wandering albatross was my favorite [bird en route to Antarctica] … but when someone would spot a southern sooty snow petrel or whatever, I’d retire to the ship’s bar and order a tall glass of who-gives-a-crap.”

That’s not to say he dismissed the people and societies he wandered amongst. He usually showed the utmost respect to the locals and their culture, and often tried to compensate his dance partners in some way. If the smiles on their faces are indications, though, the joy of physical dance was compensation enough.

The videos are magical and complete in themselves. If you want a little back-story, the book is fine coda.