The blurb on the back of the book tells us it is 'The essential manual for men... illuminating reading for women'. In point of fact I doubt that too many women will find much here that they don't already know, but certainly the man-on-the-Clapham-Omnibus will find it almost fundamentally challenging.
Taking the notion that men are essentially incomplete because of the restrictions we allow society to impose on us, the book, chapter by chapter, explores ways in which we can attempt to put the pieces back. It focuses on seven primary areas: emotions, relationships, sex, violence, our bodies, work and fathering, suggesting that we need not neglect fundamental aspects of our lives merely because society has constructed us that way 'Nothing radical in that', I hear you say.
In the last 7 or 8 years the book-shops have been awash with books on most aspects of the male psyche. However, what makes The MANual unique is its style and language, It manages to arrest one's attention with its chatty., almost blokey attitude which not only renders it a pleasure to read but makes its point in a mate-down-the-local style. Dispensing with the psycho-babble that hinders other men's books it provides information and exercises unlikely to threaten a bloke's sense of his own masculinity, and does so by breaking through our defences and appealing to the very essence of our modern maleness with examples from popular culture.
When I first began becoming interested in all this men's stuff about six or so years ago I tried to read books on men as part of my own self-help program. Inevitably I read a lot of garbage mixed in with some half-decent books. What I could really have done with was something like The MANual, Peter and Mick have provided us with yet another excellent weapon in the on-going struggle to heighten male awareness, and though by necessity it occasionally falls short in terms of depth and full analysis - and I would have liked more of a sense of the writers exposing their own personal struggles - we have at last got a book likely to be read by the very men who need it most (ie., the driver of the Clapham Omnibus!!) How they get him to pick it up in the first place is probably the greater challenge I hope the publishers have a cunning plan.
Excellent.
John Wadmore
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