Without knowing if there’s any direction you want to take this group in, I can think of a few books that I would broadly recommend men today read. I’ve read about half of what you and @anna_5588 have mentioned and I like all of the authors mentioned.
I’ll toss my avatar a bone and recommend Hell’s Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga by Hunter S. Thompson
No Shortcuts To The Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks by Ed Viesturs. (He did it without supplemental oxygen, which is YOOOGE).
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Run Between The Raindrops by Dale A. Dye
Those are the first ones that came to mind, at least. Read about extreme experiences to better appreciate the mundane ones.
I have no idea who will reply, but that’s part of the interest. Worse case scenario, no one shows up and I have an hour in a private library room to read and drink tea.
I chose these books to hit different writing styles, but also have a chronological progression so that each book would provide a form of context for the following ones. This first group I’m trying to make as wide-ranging about “Masculinity,” and hit major themes, but not be focused on any one thing. I have a few ideas for further sessions, but this feels like it would be interesting while establishing a common literary ground for future discussions.
I love all those books, but I think Tol’ko russkiye lyudi mogut prepodavat’ russkuyu literaturu. Eto slishkom udruchayushche. It’s actually another idea I’ll post later, in the middle of winter, along with sci-fi/fantasy list if people are interested.
The next two ideas I’m thinking about doing would be a series of trades/blue collar books. I already picked “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain, but I don’t know shit about welding, trucking, logging, manning a lighthouse, so I think having everyone pick a book that is what they think of as an honest look at their career would be interesting.
The second one would be a year-long thing. Reading a biography of each president a week.
I think Hell’s Angels is a particularly great discussion-generator in this regard. I haven’t read it in about 15 years or so, but it is a pretty masculine book.
It is a dude writing about hanging out with dudes who wanted to live like dudes felt dudes were supposed to live. All set in 1960’s California and involving men using quite a bit of drugs and alcohol.
Sonny Barger is a character in the story, and he went on to embody his own set of masculine traits and principles, along with doing some prison time.
Were they good guys? Not particularly, but they were far from the worst among us. I wouldn’t call Thompson a man of particularly high character, either, but he left his own mark on masculinity through his writings.
I would be interested to see how many of these there are. I’ve never specifically looked but I can’t think of many books where someone describes the ins and outs of their blue collar trade. I do think that’d be interesting though.
I don’t think there’s much out there about my trade I’d want to read or would think is honest. Which is making me think maybe when I retire I’ll write one about the joy and complete fuckery of it.*
*Attended a social work conference last week.WTF with these people - the same ones running Lewiston, ME, though I don’t ascribe malice or attribute it to a power-grab. Just stupidity.
Years ago, Studs Terkel wrote a book featuring hundreds of interviews of people from all walks of life talking about their jobs. It was surprisingly interesting and pretty eye opening. I’d love to see a modern version of his book, Working.
It’s been a long time since I read Working. It was very good. Terkel is a solid interviewer and lots of people he chose (mostly blue collar, likely a couple people you have heard of) have interesting stuff to say. The 70s nostalgia would now be an added bonus. It was a popular sociology book in its day, so I’m sure could be bought for peanuts on some used book sites.
Well worth your time. Quite different from the also excellent Kitchen Confidential, which I loved - enough to read everything else by Bourdain, including his novels. (I share his views on travel and on Henry Kissinger.)
I plowed through The End of Everything today by Victor Davis Hanson. He covers for city states and empires that disappeared and their culture with it. Grecian Thebes rebelling against young Alexander. Carthage being razed by the Romans. Constantinople, though not razed, saw its Eastern Orthodox population murdered, sold into slavery, women placed in harems, etc. After Mehmet II finally breached the walls with his Ottoman army. Then Cortez’s two year war with the Aztec. Cortez had the capital of the Mexica turned to rubble. He allowed neighboring tribes to enslave and use prisoners for human sacrifice. Though horrified by the actions of non Aztec tribes, he did little to slow them down. There were several morals to the book, but one question he asks: Why does a city state, Thebes, come to believe they can stand against a young Alexander, and succeed? It was worth a Sunday afternoon. Take Care
Libby sent a notification the other day that a book I had on hold was available. I opened the app and thought… I didn’t put this on hold, no really, not my kind of book. Started just to skip it because honestly, I don’t think I put it on my list. 15 hrs later… I am SURE it I didn’t.
The Paleontologist by Luke Dumas just skip it!
Desolation Code Clive Cussler/ Graham Brown was pretty darn good though.
LOTS of other forgettable books in there since my last post.
Oh wow! I read that in fifth grade. I got kicked out of class for some kind of misbehavior, and the teacher assigned me to read each installment and write a piece about it as proof. The guidance counselors office became my new classroom.
I was allowed back into class when I finished it.
It’s weird that there are no men’s book clubs. Women’s book clubs seems great: drink a lot of wine, talk shit with your mates (possibly mentioning a specific book, possibly not), what’s not to like?
There still seems to be some stigma about reading being for sissies or something. Mind you, that used to apply to being able to cook, which has now gone away, so maybe there’s still hope.
I would recommend The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen, that will certainly put the cat among the pigeons!
Also Beartown by Frederik Backman (best sports-themed book I’ve ever read, but SO much more than sport)
I just downloaded “And Every Morning”, I think it’s the last one of his books I haven’t read! I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of them, but the Beartown books were my favourite, much darker and less whimsical.