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

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Key Phrases: shilling tip, bivouac sack, perfect punch, Mary Ellen, Devils Thumb, Phnom Penh (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A disparate collection of articles that circle around the nebulous but recognizable notion of manly episodes, where the best material is so fine it casts a radiant shine over the entire lot. Sports, adventure, raw experience, and a couple of profiles make up these 29 uneven pieces from the likes of Tim Cahill, Jon Krakauer, and Frank McCourt. The worst is typified by, surprisingly, Sebastian Junger, who contributes ill-considered and witless thoughts on risk. Everything is ``jacked'' or ``cranked'' to the point where readers will feel they are in a tire repair shop, and he ends preposterously with ``that is the reason to take risks, because otherwise, you don't truly understand what you have to lose.'' At the other end are essays like the one from Charles Bowden, when his newspaper beat entered the dark side: ``For the next three years I lived in a world where the desires of people, almost always men, to touch and to have their way with others makes them criminals.'' Or Craig Vetter's account of radical caving, climbing a few thousand feet into the earth and then diving into a flooded snakehole: ``I decided I'd sooner light my hair and try to roast hot dogs over the flame.'' Two articles absolutely glow, and both come from Richard Sterling: one on an existential, transhistorical punch to his own cheekbone from a boxing master, another on the fine and mad sport of luring pickpockets into a trap. Sterling's writing is like spitfire, foursquare and jazzy with crackle, and his behavior is just scary enough to make you glad you're not approaching a touchy border crossing in his company. A busy, unruly crossroads of war and playing baseball and men who get silicon breast implants on a bet and a mass gay sexfest in a Florentine hostel and leaving your friend to die in a crevasse. Another strange and compelling day for man on planet Earth. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Description

Journey with us to the four corners of the earth and watch the male of the species drink from the Holy Grail of manhood. You've encountered them before -- men: the most dangerous, annoying, courageous, and ridiculous creatures around.

In Testosterone Planet you will:

Visit the world's most dangerous girlfriend
Be assaulted by wild turkeys
Climb into steaming animal carcasses
Visit a guru who can materialize objects out of thin air
Be chased through the woods by a dominant female
Lay in wait for bad guys in Central Park
Have your plane thrown through an Argentine cyclone
Hop a train in America with some hoboes
Do shameful things with Italian gay policemen
Pass through an African cowhide portal into another dimension
Live on an island by yourself
Discover telepathy with savages
Be applauded as a hero in Calcutta
Scuba dive the world's deepest cave
Enjoy a torrid desert afternoon with a beautiful stranger
Have tea with Saddam Hussein while tripping on Ecstasy

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Travelers' Tales (January 4, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885211430
• ISBN-13: 978-1885211439
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #780,521 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I laughed, I cried, I howled, I'm a woman!, October 22, 1999

By A Customer

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).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Some winners, some losers, July 1, 2006

By	Paper Pen "S. Wilson" (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ladies, read herein of Real Men!, April 14, 2000

By	Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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.