How to fly an aeroplane, handle your liquor, have sex, perform voodoo, and so much more.

This book, published by Harper & Row in 1987, remains a classic, even though it unfortunately is now out of print. It somehow fell into my hands on some obscure party in the early nineties and must have borrowed it, the only problem being completely forgetting about the name or face of the owner (must have been quite a night). Since then I've read it cover to cover. Maybe not quite because I wanted to know something about the structural theory of date design or how to grow a good lawn, but because the advice had such a mindboggingly broad spectrum and was very well and humourously written.

The authors Denis Boyles, Alan Rose and Alan Wellikoff (some of them writing the Barman's Advice column in Esquire) apparently tried to find a book on tropical fish and were not as successful as they hoped, so they decided to write one: It turned into an book on everyhting a man might ever have to know in his life, and to compensate for their deficits in the certain topics, they asked their friends and quote them in the book, so it turned out in a good humoured collection of advice and knowledge by a couple of blokes on everything a man might need to know and more.

To give you an idea on the extent of topics covered, here the list of chapters:

All in all 450 pages of good humoured, blokeish fun. Unfortunately the book is now out of print, but still available on the usual websites. Get it while you can.

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