Frank, honest and understanding.
A straightforward, practical guide for men in heterosexual relationships who’d like to explore sex with other men.
In this slim, accessible book, Benn aims to reach the “typical sexually restless married male.” For him, this man is likely between 40 and 60 years old, and though married for more than 10 years, he secretly longs for man-to-man contact, perhaps including sex. While maybe not quite ready for, or even interested in, leaving his wife and family, he can no longer hide his desires. That’s where Benn steps in. In sympathetic, nonjudgmental prose, he advises readers on how to conduct private relationships with other men, exploring first why certain men may want to stray from their normal path. He’s encouraging and yet realistic, letting men know that while they’re hardly alone in their gay fantasies, acting on these fantasies will likely wreak havoc on their marriages. Nevertheless, the decision is up to them. The book will be particularly useful to those looking for practical advice about how to enter into a gay lifestyle, with chapters on where to meet men—including sex shops, adult cinemas and gay bars—how to react if you encounter a man from your “other life” in one of these locations and how to engage in safe sex. In a time when gay lifestyles are increasingly accepted, the book has a slightly retrograde feel to it. One wonders why Benn didn’t simply write a manual about coming out, as he writes so emphatically about the relief and joy of unearthing the desire. Most likely, it’s due to the fact that Benn appreciates how difficult it can be to turn away from the notion of a traditional marriage. “He doesn’t want to hurt anybody, least of all his wife or children,” Benn writes. There are also other practical concerns, like finances, that may make it even harder to change. To Benn’s credit, he acknowledges that committing adultery is an ethical decision not to be taken lightly.
Frank, honest and understanding.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481099677
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
