Customer Reviews

The Man's Book: The Essential Guide for the Modern Man

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This is an essential guide for any man including a random collection of charts, lists, and detailed instructions on what makes a man a man! From how to choose the correct urinal in a public restroom to essential drinking games you should know how to play to how to properly master the art of tying a bowtie, this book is a perfect gift for any male graduate, groom, groomsmen, brother, best friend, and would be a perfect gift for Father's Day!! Kudos, Thomas Fink!

The Man's Book: The Essential Guide for the Modern Man
The Man's Book is a compendium of information that is obscure but highly useful, intermixed with information that is so arcane as to be useless but is nevertheless amusing. Often, they are even the same pieces of information. Eleven sections cover everything from outdoor survival to text message theory to choosing a best man. The chapter on Sports and Games includes both a table showing the optimal loading of weight plates for a barbell, and the rules for playing Beer Pong. The chapter on Dress includes the expected instructions for different methods of tying a necktie, bow tie, or cravat, as well as the proper relationship between the number of dress shirts and trousers that you should own (number of shirts squared equals number of trousers cubed) and how many to pack for a trip. It also instructs you in how to wear your dress shirts when not also wearing a tie; "One open button is safe; two suggests insouciance; three smacks of an Italian playboy." As for how to wear a top hat (included under Clothes for Weddings), The Man's Book cautions us that, "Squat crowns [make] you look, if you are not careful, like a doorman at a provincial hotel in Holland." Perish the thought.

The Man's Book includes an entire section on Women, beginning with Chivalry, proceeding through Marriage, and ending with Saying Goodbye (not breaking it off, but rather a dictionary or proper closings for correspondence). Yet there is no mention of children or fatherhood. This book does contain many facts that can help a man out in a pinch ("One of the easiest ways of starting a fire is by a magnifying glass. A well-suited specimen is conveniently included with the compact edition of the Oxford English Dictionary....If the OED is not at hand, a simple and effective lens can be constructed from water and Saran wrap."). But for equally useful fatherhood advice, e.g., how to construct an emergency diaper, dads will have to look elsewhere instead.

Thomas Fink's The Man's Book is indeed an essential guide for any modern man. Split into broad subject topics, Fink informs men on everything they should know about health, sports/games, women, dress, outdoors, drinking, smoking, cooking, idling, and arts and sciences. Among the numerous topics, a man will learn the benefits of a wet shave versus a dry shave, how to cook a steak, the right wine to serve for any occasion, what suit to wear and when to wear it, what to stock in a kitchen, the equation for the perfect age of a potential bride, how to make a potato gun, and everything one needs to know about the man-of-men James Bond. If you would like to know Morse Code, it is in there. Curious about a few of the best cocktails? You will find them in The Man's Book. Need to make an origami wallet? Fink shows you how. And if you are having a hard time becoming a modern media man, you can follow the guidelines of the essential books and movies for any male.

There is a lot of humor found in The Man's Book. Fink doesn't approach the topic of manliness and masculinity without a few jokes. I got a good laugh out of the urinal position chart. And the picture guide of beard styles? I laughed out loud, I'll admit. You need to be able to see the humor in being a man or dealing with men to thoroughly enjoy The Man's Book. You will learn everything you want and need to know about quite a few things, so you will miss out if you take life too seriously and put down the book.

It is true that I am not a male and therefore don't need a guide to become the perfect modern male. But let's be honest here... most men are never going to learn all of these things for themselves and will thus never know what a man should know. Right? It is just as essential for a woman to know this information as it is for any man because she can-- and most likely will-- help guide him in the right direction. She can make sure he has the right suits, the right tools of hygiene, and the right liquors in the cabinets.

Some of the information is even gender neutral. For example, women love beer and sports and chili, too! Even women need to know about wines and men's clothing and essential spices. It's not like this sort of stuff is born into women. We need a guide for these things as much as a man. As I read The Man's Book, I learned a lot that I can and will use in the future. I knew nothing about wine until now, for example. And I learned all of this with a laugh. The Man's Book is clear and to the point, but not a dry read. I think that The Man's Book is a great reference for anyone to have on their shelf. I am keeping my copy on an easy to reach shelf just in case my boyfriend needs to know what to wear or I need to know which wine to serve with my meal.

My thoughts
"The Man's Book: The Essential Guide for the Modern Man" by Thomas Fink is a manual for today's man. It is filled with graphs, lists, instructions and drawings to help the man be a man. It includes things like how to tie a tie (various different ways) to where to stand at a public urinal when there are others there. Do you stay away from the door, close to the next person, away from them, what if there is more than one? Okay, enough on that topic. He teaches how to make drinks and what's the difference with types of beers. Yep, this book is stocked with many tidbits of information on being a man. Fun book.

I will be giving this book to my husband for Father's Day and I think he will enjoy it, especially as bathroom reading which is where most men do the majority of their reading; isn't it?
The Man's Book consists of eleven chapters ranging from topics such as health to outdoors to smoking (one that I wish had not even been included since there is nothing good about smoking of any kind). Each chapter begins with quotes from famous men such as Ben Franklin and Ian Fleming and is followed by a few paragraphs to a few pages about a variety of topics. There is serious information such as a BMI chart, practical information such as how to tye a bow tie and entertaining such as how to make a spud gun.
So if you're looking for a gift for your husband, dad or even best man this year, I recommend this book.

This is one of the most entertaining as well as useful books I've come across in a long time. This would have been the best high-school graduation gift ever. This book would have been immensely helpful through my college years, and if anything, a great topic starter... or ender. It's also a great wedding gift for college buddies that I know need as much manly help as I do.

I bought this book to refine myself a bit more... Solidly put together book with lots of good tips, tricks, facts, etc. for the modern man in here. I can say I learned a lot by reading this book... Good humor throughout too. If I had to pick a negative - I'd say that the book can be scatter-brained at times... One second I'm reading something on topic X and the next sentence reading about topic Y.

This is a pretty good reference book akin to the Dangerous Book for Boys (which is much better).

Half the book, however, was about topics I could care less about.

I would recommend a purchase if it was really cheap, otherwise just rent.

I must say, since I ordered this book for a friend, I was sorely disappointed not only in the book's presentation, but the actual content.
The text rambles on and on, and it seems like this is a book that would have been used 30 years ago in a Hotel Management School in an etiquette class.
A much more contemporary, well put together edition is the Esquire The Handbook of Style: A Man's Guide to looking good - which is contemporary, picturesque,very doable, rich with practical knowledge and gives you every tidbit from how to fold a trouser to how to store a trouser.
Don't waste your money on this one.