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MAN SQUARE

Name: MAN SQUARE
Author: Curtis Hibbler
ISBN: 978-1496926449

by Curtis Hibbler ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2014

A no-frills primer aimed squarely at a socially conservative Christian readership.

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A concise guide for women who want to understand their men.

According to debut author Hibbler, “men are simple,” and this guide to understanding them is too: it’s fewer than 30 pages, about half of which feature stick-figure illustrations rather than text. With no space for mincing words, Hibbler gets right down to helping women who “are still at a loss when it comes to men.” As Hibbler sees it, men have four parts analogous to the four equal sides of a square: loyalty, food, solitude, and sex. If they succeed in fulfilling those four basic requirements, Hibbler states, women will be able to satisfy the men in their lives. He does make an exception for those he describes as “useless men,” advising his female readers: “If he has no purpose for his life, he will be a deadbeat, no matter what you do.” The author states early on that “the Bible is [the] foundation” to understanding men but makes only a few references to specific biblical teachings, leaving the rationale for the rest of his advice unclear. Most of that advice is stated in vague terms without instructions for practical application. For example, on loyalty, Hibbler writes: “He needs to feel that it is automatic and natural as the relationship develops,” without offering strategies for how a woman might take action to foster that feeling. Similarly, Hibbler frequently fails to explain why his observations are specific to men. “Most men will respond to their favorite foods in a positive way,” he writes but does not say why this response might be different or more pronounced for men. What’s more, Hibbler’s views hew so closely to traditional gender norms—“men should not have a feminine side”; “God put the man ahead of the woman”—that many modern women will most likely be put off. Still, the author’s conversational tone and complete lack of pretense may appeal to conservative-leaning readers looking for a new perspective on male/female relationships.

A no-frills primer aimed squarely at a socially conservative Christian readership.

Pub Date: July 25, 2014

ISBN: 978-1496926449

Page Count: 48

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Review Posted Online: May 21, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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IN MY PLACE

by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992

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From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)