I started to go through some of the example code in the Fenics manual
It seems like the API used in the example code is out of date. Is there more up to date documentation? Is it worth rolling back the version so the manual is still applicable?
The interface differs only in some details, so the book is still not a bad reference (if you know what is different). However, since some things changed since 2011, you should first look at the examples that come with your distribution. Up to date tutorials and documentation of the examples can usually be found on fenicsproject.org.
Up-to-date documentation is available at http://fenicsproject.org/documentation/