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The Man Book
By Otto DeFay, Wendy Letven St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2008 Otto DeFay
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-2520-4
INTRODUCTION
YOU ARE A MAN. This is your book.
This is a book for males. More specifically, men. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books for women and for girls. They address the needs of a woman's body, of a woman's emotional self, of a woman's relationship with her mother, of a woman's desire to go shopping. Chances are, one or more of these has already found its way into your home.
However, there has not been a single book — not one — about men and men's bodies, men's emotions, and all the things that go into becoming a man.
First of all, the idea sounds silly. Or perhaps even downright stupid. Men don't want to hear about such things. Men grow up, and they deal with it. That is the essence of being a man.
Unfortunately, growing up is never as easy as it's supposed to be. Men do have problems with their bodies. Men do have emotions. And, much as they don't want to admit, men have needs. Those needs extend beyond sports, sex, and alcohol. Not far, but they do extend.
We're not here to get all touchy-feely. Quite the contrary, we're here to provide information, some of it amusing, some of it scientific, some of it useful, some of it trivial. All of it is designed to be read while waiting for your significant other in the dress department of the local department store. Or perhaps while you're spending quality time in the bathroom after a night of eating jalapeño bratwursts and chili dogs.
Women's books have names like Our Bodies, Ourselves, Growing a Girl, Reviving Ophelia, and Martha Stewart's Entertaining. Men don't have books — they have magazines. Most of these magazines you can't read in public after the age of thirty. Certainly, they're not the kind of magazines that your significant other is going to appreciate you leaving on the coffee table just as she is getting ready to have a baby shower for her best friend.
So it's time for a book. This book.
This book is for men. Certainly, adolescent males will find much of interest — and much to laugh about — in these pages. Finding humor in just about everything is part of becoming a man. But our target male is not just the man who is in the mood to laugh, but someone who might be on his way to getting married, is already married, or equally important, has just scheduled his first prostate exam.
No one ever tells a growing man his nipples will hurt if he bumps them during gym in high school, that his pubic hairs will turn gray one at a time, or that someday sleep will be more desirable than sex.
No one ever tells you. So we're going to.
And we're not going to stop there. For instance, no one ever quite knows how big a soccer field should be. We do.
No one gives you that perfect joke to tell the boss when he's treating you like his best friend. We do.
No one tells you how big your girlfriend's tits really are. We do.
No one quite remembers who won the NASCAR championship ten years ago, or what the exact difference is between a single malt and blended whiskey, or how to make a martini, or what a petabyte is, or Iron Man's secret identity, or the difference between hail and sleet, or what to buy for a twentieth anniversary, or the best things to say during a prostate exam.
We do.
Be a man. Read on.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Man Book by Otto DeFay, Wendy Letven. Copyright © 2008 Otto DeFay. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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