Customer Reviews

Testosterone Planet: True Stories from a Man's World (Travelers' Tales Guides)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Not for men only--I'm gonna give this to girlfriends because it hits so many male issues, fears, fathers, fighting, lovers, and then some, that we have to deal with. I'm glad I'm not a man but this book made me like them better than I sometimes do. They actually do think, they write, they cry, they wonder, they are tender. Well ok, the first story IS called "The Perfect Punch in the Face." But the book ends with a really sweet baseball story. Another fave was "Wild Turkey" a hilarious story about male posturing and fighting off a big dumb cluck (something most women are familiar with).

This is a mixed bag of 25 stories "from a man's world." As you might expect with a compilation, it contains both hits and misses. Some of the stories are excerpted from elsewhere, so you may have read them before.

I found these stories the strongest:

"Crevasse" -- An engaging story of survival at Mt. McKinley by Jim Wickwire.
"Devil's Thumb" -- Jon Krakauer's story of facing his personal demons on a solo climb.
"Trail Mix" -- A funny hiking story from Bill Bryson (but I'd read it in "A Walk in the Woods).
"Turn the Tables" -- Richard Sterling tells about the fun he had thwarting pickpockets in Vietnam.
"Abyss" -- A solid account of a groundbreaking caving expedition, by Craig Vetter.
"Kharkov and the Lubyanka" -- A grim, but interesting, story of a political prisoner treatment under Stalin. Excerpted from "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz.

Some of the other stories are quite short and can be fine for a quick diversion since they don't require a huge commitment.

Some stories are too long, or just plain uninteresting, and fall into the flat-waste-of-time category: Paul William Roberts' "No Like A-feesh?," Tim Ward's "Fire Beneath the Skin," Eddy L. Harris' "On the Road" and Sebastian Junger's "The Lure of Danger" are the chief offenders.

Touted as a book of men's away-from-home stories, presumably collected to illustrate the courage and /or foolishness of Manly Men under the influence of excessive testosterone in a dangerous world, it has merit. However, I'm acquainted with females of the species that would happily go off on similar adventures, so I'm not convinced that the experiences related are totally a Guy Thing. In any case, there are some very funny, as well as very horrific, yarns to be found in these selected twenty-five. Ray Isle's confrontation with a wild turkey while on a solo, very macho camping trip is hilarious. Jim Wickwire's memories of a friend's death and his own survival on a mountain glacier are heartrending, as are Michael Herr's recollections of the effect of combat on the American troops stationed in `Nam. Positively chilling is the gritty story of survival under torture in Moscow's Lubyanka by Slavomir Rawicz. Finally, Larry Habegger makes a convincing case for middle-aged man's ability to return to the summertime of youth, however briefly.

Admittedly, some of the essays are not memorable. I may have dozed off while reading William Ashton's "A Room of Men" - some blather about a painting. George Wright's "Applause in Calcutta" must have been too deep for me because I totally failed to see the point. "No Like A-feesh?" by Paul Roberts verged on being just annoying.

A fine read for a Real Man. In the same spirit of sharing after I do the laundry and ironing this weekend, maybe I'll write and tell you all about it.

Testosterone Planet is a collection of different author's supposedly true stories while travelling or just plain living in some part of our planet. Whilst there are some great entries which are very entertaining reads such as Turn the Tables by Richard Sterling (whether this is really fiction or as this anthology implies in fact true, you decide, but it is damn entertaining none the less) but there are also some really boring as well as really stupid stories, such as The Perfect Punch in the Face ironically by the same author who spins the Turn the Tables tale. Any collection of short stories by various authors will go up and down in quality but overall the entire collection I thought was pretty average as far as these things go.

If you want some really good non fiction tales that read like great fiction novels read the books Join Me or Yes Man by Danny Wallace. Are You Dave Gorman? or Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure by Dave Gorman, Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team by George Jonas and Escapes! (True Stories from the Edge) by Laura Scandiffio are all much better value reads.

First of all, these are GUY stories, yes, lady's might like to know what goes on inside our heads, but these are stories told from a guy's perspective. Some are outrageous, some funny, a couple sad but in a "its a tough world, and people die doing stupid stuff" sort of way. But really any real man would have gone on this adventure anyway, he just would have been a bit more prepared. These stories focus on the outdoors adventerous types of guys, so if you are a weenie, but wonder what you are missing, this is a good place to start, there is still hope.

My favorite is the "turkey" story, and it alone was worth the price of this book.

BTW I got my copy as a present, so I recommend it as such.