Books for boys

If you like oily food, this cookbook’s for you

By Nury Vittachi

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Guys, want to save time and money? Simply stick raw food items under your car hood. By the time you get home, dinner will be cooked perfectly!

                But that’s only if you have carefully followed the instructions in a unique cook book called “Manifold Destiny". The slogan is "More recipes per gallon".

To serve its largely male audience, recipe times are given in motoring terms. A quick trip from supermarket to home will flash fry vegetables, but to cook a whole turkey, simply drive 320 kilometers for a constant four hours on a high-speed expressway.

               This is just one of many volumes which readers sent in following my request for odd books.

Today, we will focus on books aimed at men. Men like danger, destruction and doing-it-yourself, so they buy a lot of “how to” books. All the following are real volumes, some still available on Amazon.com.
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1) “How to Start Your Own Country”.
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2) “How to be Happy Though Married”.
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3) “How to Rent a Negro”.
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4) “How to Become a Schizophrenic”. (This had only one named author—surely a mistake?)
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5) “How to Read a Book”. (Clever, this. Technically speaking, you can’t read this without reading it first.)
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6) “How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men”. (This book is lagging at number 827,338 in the Amazon.com bestseller lists, so I hope the author is more successful with women than he is with book sales.)
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                Oddly, many of the books for men tried to get us to be more successful in our social lives. As if men lack social graces!

One title was “Well, Blow Me Down: A Guy’s Guide to Talking Like a Pirate”. Apparently women are driven wild with lust if a man comes limping into the room and says things like, “Avast, Jim lad, you saucy wench.” Well, I tried it with my woman last night and she just laughed. Of course, that could be because I had removed my lower garments, which has always been a signal for her to go into hysterics.

Not all the books tried to make men nicer. There was one called “English as a Second F***ing Language: How to Swear Effectively, Explained in Detail with Numerous Examples Taken From Everyday Life.”

This book I definitely don’t need. I get quite enough of that sort of thing from my visits as “guest speaker” to rowdy, raucous groups such as rugby clubs, drinking clubs and (you’d be surprised) parent-teacher association meetings.

               Also for men was an intriguing book entitled: “Are Women Human?”

Now that is one of those questions which probably every man on the planet has asked himself in the privacy of his own thoughts, but I dare to venture that none of us has ever asked out loud. Or at least, none of us has asked and lived to tell the tale.

                There were also a small number of biographies for men. One of them was called “Exile in Guyville: How a Punk Rock Redneck Faggot Texan Moved to West Hollywood and Refused to Be Shiny and Happy”. The title says so much that you really no longer need to read the book, do you?

                To get female readers excited, I shall sign off in pirate language: “Time to haul the gangplank, me hearty buxom wenches.”
                I know you love it.

Comments

[Machoman]

The reason no man has asked the question "Are women human?" is that we know the answer but are too scared to face its implications.

[Nainil Shah]

I have some more wierd/funny book titles:
"When Your Phone Doesn't Ring, It'll Be Me" by Cynthia Heimel
"If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?!" by Cynthia Heimel
"Women Are from Venus, Men Are from Hell" by Amanda Newman
"Dave Barry's Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead" by Dave Barry
"Babies and Other Hazards of Sex: How to Make a Tiny Person in Only 9 Months, with Tools You Probably Have around the Home" by Dave Barry
"How to Murder Your Mother in Law" by Dorothy Cannell
"Get Your Tongue Out of My Mouth, I’m Kissing You Goodbye" by Cynthia Heimel
"Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining" by Judge Judy Sheindlin
"40 Yards to the Latrine" by Willy Makeit and Betty Wont
"Big Fart!" by Hugh Jass

[Mare Allison]

I suppose it was inevitable that I should some day write to you. Your books and columns have been a source of many laughs for years and years. Thank you!

In your column today you mentioned the ‘intriguing book entitled: Are Women Human?

It’s by Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957), who was, along with JRR Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, a member of the Inklings – a writers’ group. Her most well-known titles are her Lord Peter Whimsey stories… all classic detective who-dun-its. But those were just for fun.

She was one of the first women to graduate from Oxford, she distinguished herself as a classical scholar, and was graduated with first honours in 1915.

She was a lay theologian and Christian apologist. There are two essays in this little volume: Are Women Human? is an address given to a women’s society in 1938. The second, The Not-Quite-Human Human, deals specifically with women and the church. As a Christian woman from a church background where silence and submission were essential to being a ‘good Christian’, there is nothing that has helped to clarify my thinking and hasten my freedom so much as these essays.

Let me know if you want me to send you a copy. My husband and I have five daughters and three granddaughters. So I usually seem to have a copy or two lying around somewhere.

[Woo!]

There was a film guide book called Sex & Zen and A Bullet in the Head (or was it the other way around?)

[Hearty Wench]

It sounds like you are in rehearsal for the big day tomorrow. You don't know what 19 September signifies? It is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, of course. If your pirate speak is a bit rusty, then just go to www.talklikeapirate.com to brush up on your skills, which include talking like a pirate in German (with some Mandarin Chinese options thrown in for good measure). And you can also add another book to your collection of odd books with "The Pirate Life: Unleashing Your Inner Buccaneer". Ahoy, and shiver me timbers!

[I-live-2-ride]

How to Rent a Negro? You've got to be kidding me (That ain't the way we do it in West by God Virginia).

What'll they think of next? Perhaps a how to book for the negro: "How to succeed at basketball and marry a hot blonde."

[Spikey]

There is another book, titled "Are Women Human: And Other International Dialogues" (By Catherine MacKinnon) which I actually had the pleasure of reading for an International Relations course. Oddly enough, it concludes that Women are not, in fact, human because they have never been treated as such.

[fardel]

My book supplier sent me a selection of books for sale/
- doga:yoga for your dog
- old tractors and the men who love them
- The book of marmalade
- A new handbook for hanging
- monk habits for everyday people
- How to survive a robot urprising
-outhouses by famous architects

[Imee Baronda]

Lol! I smiled and get curious when I saw the title of the book with "cooking in your Engine"?? Looks interesting and quite funny at all :), I'll better try a look of it...maybe it will helps us... Keep it up and more power!

From the Philippines,
Imee
ChooseYourOwnAdventureBooks.org for Kids, Adults and Teachers

[bdsm toys]

There are some of us with a clear understanding of exactly what they want in life and I think I can applaud them for being honest with themselves. Dating sites that are specific about their intent and their demographic are quite readily available online, with varying names - some famous and some not.