How to Remodel a Man: Tips and Techniques on Accomplishing Something You Know Is Impossible but Want to Try Anyway (Hardcover)

by W. Bruce Cameron (Author) "Women are willing to purchase a man off the rack, but then they want to take him home and make alterations..." (more)
Key Phrases: wet sandwich, leaf blower, Changed Man, Madame Butterfly, Teen Town (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Humor columnist Cameron follows his bestselling 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter (2001) with a somewhat scrambled but goofily satisfying parody of inspirational how-to books. While warning women that effecting real change in their men is nigh impossible ("Attempting to modify a man's behavior is like trying to talk cats into playing the tuba—even if you can convince them to put their lips on the thing, they'll never understand why"), he does offer plenty of tongue-in-cheek hints: to get a man to exercise, for example, buy him cool new gear; to cope with a man who snores, "teach yourself to snore back in self-defense." As an ostensibly "Changed Man" himself, Cameron is free to paint a comically unflattering portrait of male behavior in sections such as "Male's Verbal Skills Are Slow To Develop, and Then They Stop." In other words, men are idiots, and Cameron offers numerous funny takes on that thesis—only some of which might sound familiar to readers of Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys, a classic comic take on the male psyche.
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Review
"Hilarious, dead on." --Oprah Winfrey "You'll laugh, you'll cry" --O Magazine "It's rare to read a columnist who is so consistently laugh-out-loud funny! Bruce Cameron is a master of humorous dialogue and can make virtually any topic funny ." --National Society of Newspaper Columnists 'A lighthearted, witty, and ultimately moving look at why men will always be different, and why that's not necessarily bad news for women." --John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (August 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031233317X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312333171
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #944,535 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sudy Hurst---current woman and recent reader of Bruce's book, December 9, 2004

By	Sudy Hurst (Leawood, Kansas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Tired of War and Peace and want/need some fun, humorous reading? Read this book then! Page by page, the author highlights very funny facts about men that my male friends really do tell me they associate with and even find funny! My girlfriends think the book is hysterical and they make great gifts for book club or an easy read.......but only if you want to laugh!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh Out Loud <LOL> , December 9, 2004

By	Kipsy Marlowe "mkp" (Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, USA) - See all my reviews

<LOL!> Buy this book ONLY if you want to "Laugh Out Loud." It has page after page of hilarious "helpful hints" -- ammunition for the ongoing battle of the sexes -- presented in a sillier, softer format, yet with a sly masculine slant. Chock-ful of light-hearted answers to everyday questions, like why a guy would want to go to a ball game in the snow wearing nothing but green greasepaint, the amusing text turns turns guff into guffaw. The author's comparison to the "map of Wyoming" is a pretty astute observation about what really goes on inside the male brain. On the flipside, the over-the-top mirth level takes some of the pain out of how much giving birth really hurts. Each chapter gets funnier. Presented ingenuously, the Seinfeld-like absurdity of everyday gender-specific topics forces readers to remind ourselves to laugh at/with, rather than leave, the significant other. I laughed so hard at the teaching the dog not to fart part that I dropped the book, and found my page again somewhere between wry and "way-witty." This writer is not just hilarious, he's absolutely hysterical! This Cameron dude takes humor writing to a whole new level. There's only one drawback: Jolly as it is, reading this book is a teensy bit sad because it makes you miss Erma Bombeck's newspaper column. I wish he would write a column for the major syndicates so we could pick up the newspaper and have a new laugh every day.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still chuckling, October 14, 2004

By	Victor Detroit (Detroit) - See all my reviews

My wife kept laughing out loud while reading this book. I repeatedly asked to "borrow" it, but she had to share it with all her friends first. I finally had to buy my own copy! And I find myself laughing (at least chuckling) over Cameron's unique
and sort of crazy sense of humor.
I don't think I'm ready for remodeling (don't ask my wife), but I recognize myself on almost every page. I'm just macho enough to consider my traits "endearing."
Would like to see a sequel about remodeling a woman !!