[ book tip by Hannah Geismar ] How To Mow The Lawn - The lost art of being a man is the kind of book you either love or hate, and I have decided I love it because of what I truly hate: the vast amount of so-called 'advice' that is thrown at you from all angles these days... You can't open a magazine or go on the internet without coming across some kind of 'how to'-segment. But it's not the advice itself I hate, it's the amount of it - there's simply too much. And if you ever decided to keep some if it for later use, I bet you would still never manage to dig up the advice on how to stop the faucet from dripping that you printed out in 2005, when you eventually need it one day in 2007.

In this context, How To Mow The Lawn suddenly goes from being a silly little book, to being almost a masterpiece. It's useful advice in a small and handy format - and the cover is kitchy enough to look good in even the trendiest home. Most of the advice is useful for everybody ('How to fix a vacuum cleaner') - and some of it is silly enough to make it look like you have an extraordinary sense of humor ('How to shave').

The book claims to be aimed at guys who would like to be men. That is: manly men who do manly things and behave in manly ways. Certain guys probably buy this book just to fantasize about what it would be like to be a real man and then laugh it off if questioned: 'No, no, I don't need that kind of thing, I just thought it was really funny'.

This doesn't mean that women can't use the advice or enjoy reading the book. On the contrary, all this manliness can be good entertainment. If you cut out pictures of your favorite moviestars and put them in the appropriate places (like 'What to do if a woman faints') you can even create your own little piece of innocent-looking porn. Knowing that if you ever ended up with a man who insisted on living life the way it's pictured in this book, you would probably run away screaming.

Available in French as Comment tondre la pelouse, JC Lattès, 2003

[ book info ] Martin, Sam: How To Mow The Lawn. Elwin Street Ltd, 2003 .