Early Review: The Rough Guide to Men's Health

I've recently found myself embracing a long-awaited resurgence in reading, so I've taken advantage and given myself an opportunity to knock down more of my LibraryThing Early Reviewer responsibilities, delinquent though they may be.

This review is quite a change of pace, as it is not at all a novel but more of a nonfiction reference guide: The Rough Guide to Men's Health, written by Lloyd Bradley in conjunction with a number of experts and originally published in December of 2008. Despite it not being a novel, my testicularly blessed readers may have particular interest in this text, and so I present my review for your perusal.

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There's only so much a person can expect from a reference book on men's health--particularly when that person is horribly unused to reading any nonfiction at all. Despite this, I was excited to receive The Rough Guide to Men's Health, expecting that, as a man whose health could use some improvement, I would be able to glean some ideas from it. In the end, it proves to be a useful, well-written, easy-to-read manual that's lacking in certain areas, but is nevertheless a great start for any man trying to look and feel better.

The Guide is divided into three parts, with the first part, "Wherever, Whenever," being the one that makes up the bulk of the book. This section features lengthy chapters focusing on specific aspects of male health--from physical fitness to digestion, the workings of the brain to working it in the bedroom. The second part, "Fit for Life," is much shorter and more focused on what to expect as one ages, and how one can maintain the best health possible over time. The final part is a reference suggestion, chock full of Web sites and suggested readings, as well as a handy self-diagnosis section and an A-Z list of ailments men can expect to deal with in life.

While the book's structure and wide range of topics make it feel as if it wants to be comprehensive, it's worth noting right off the bat that it is far from an exhaustive guide. Men expecting to find each chapter providing a specific outline of what to do to reach their maximal health will be disappointed, as the book is less interested in explaining precisely what to do as it is in giving a clear, straightforward explanation of how each system works. Along the way, of course, Bradley and his team of experts give you suggestions as to how best to feel healthful, but it's usually done by way of showing how our 21st-Century lifestyles are disrupting how our systems ought to run. This is not a fault, per se, but something the how-to reader should be aware of.

The text of this section, and the rest of the book, actually, is incredibly readable. Bradley's tone is relatively jovial but also businesslike: he understands how a man would want to be addressed, and the book speaks very comfortably in that manner. Alongside the main text are a great deal of text boxes, charts, facts, figures, and images, all of which add to the book's value as a resource. Interestingly, however, they take away from the narrative of the book, which is surprisingly engaging and well-presented. There are moments that feel like information overload, particularly since many of the info boxes have a tendency to repeat things (almost verbatim) from the main text--and, in a few cases, from other text boxes in other parts of the book. But all in all, the book never feels like a chore to read, which is a huge plus.

While the first section is incredibly well-written and engaging, the other two leave a bit to be desired, most probably because they are so dreadfully short. "Fit for Life" feels like a bit of an afterthought, as it tries to compress dealing with aging, doctors, and the motivation to keep at a fitness plan all within 35 brief pages. Incorporating these details more into the earlier sections might have been more palatable in terms of structure and effectiveness. The reference section, by contrast, is equally brief but surprisingly comprehensive, and while the self-diagnostic tables are far from the be-all and end-all of identifying one's ills, they are a useful start.

All told, The Rough Guide to Men's Health is full of good information, even if it's not always presented in the ideal or expected manner. (Or, for that matter, well-edited: note well, there are typos galore.) But it is a compulsively readable book that takes a notoriously boring topic and adds fresh life to it. It's the kind of book that makes you want to make the changes it professes about, and that alone makes it worth the price of admission. It may not singlehandedly save your life, but it'll get you on the right path--and, as Bradley astutely points out near the end, sometimes the motivation is the hardest part.

Living the Dream?

For someone who has been griping all summer about the fact that he doesn't have a job, I've noticed I have a pretty severe problem with Mondays. This has come as an especially noteworthy surprise to me lately because I have always maintained that it is Tuesday, and not Monday, that is unequivocally the worst day of the week. (For a recap of that argument, see here.) After much soul-searching, I've decided that I suspect it's the fault of the Monday-Friday work week, and the expectation that I should be going to a place of employment on a Monday morning, that I feel I'm being driven headlong into the doldrums every Sunday night when I go to sleep.

And lest ye remind me that the problem is far from exclusively Davidian, I know, damn it. I'm well aware that the struggling economy is striking everyone very strongly--and I'm even more astutely aware that an industry as insular as the publishing industry is only going to get more compact the harder times get. So the task of getting my foot in the door is exceptionally challenging, even with my exceptionally small feet. But before I let this turn into a rant about why my credentials seem to be getting me nowhere (that's another rant, for another day, in the distant future, when/if I continue to be in the same unemployed boat), I instead want to mention two encounters I've had over the past two days, each of which has given me a bit of a different perspective on what it means to be in my present condition.

Last night after dinner, which followed a day of concentrated job searching in the wake of my typical Monday morning petulance, I took a ride with my father to a job site. On the way back from the errand, we drove past a bar and grill in Elmwood Park that had recently opened, one that he drove past on an almost-daily basis but never went into in the two months it had been open for business. He asked me if I wanted to stop for a drink and, naturally, I agreed.

The place was relatively quiet and we had no trouble finding a seat at the bar. He ordered his standard, a screwdriver, while I tried to enjoy a Blue Moon from the tap. Unfortunately for me, the keg was tapped and I quickly assured the amusingly frazzled bartender that another screwdriver would be just fine. Based on this exchange, and my father's curiosity about how the place was doing, we struck up a conversation with the bartender. Of course, the discussion eventually steered towards the economy. I offered up the usual spiel on my job search, but the guy had a certain quality to him, and when he started pressing me a bit more on what I wanted to do, I dropped the act and bared a bit more than usual. I told him about my novel, about the screenplay Karen and I are working on, and about my aspirations to be a writer.

In response, he asked me if I had a business card. Naturally, I was a bit taken aback--I told him no and asked him why he was interested. He responded by reaching into his own pocket and handing me one of his cards. Turns out our bartender does some acting in New York City, and is in contact with a number of directors who are frequently looking for scripts to take a look at. He urged me to keep working and keep him posted about how the script is progressing, going so far as to say he'd help me shop it around a bit once it was completed. And like so many other situations I've been in lately, he stressed that making the connections is the most important part, because I never know what might happen from having met him.

And of course, he's absolutely right. One never knows what opportunity they'll have missed because they didn't say what needed to be said to this or that person at the given time. Maybe this will be the connection that makes it all come together, maybe it won't. But if nothing else, it gives me an awfully good reason to hold onto my focus in the midst of all my frustrations.

In the face of all this career-seeking discussion, by contrast, I was faced with a meeting today with an old compatriot whose career has taken a rather sudden turn. My old high school theatre teacher retired from education several years ago--amidst of a number of instance of (surprise!) student disrespect and overbearing parental demands. He left with no regrets and pursued more seriously his then-part-time work as a stagehand, working with several local venues and theatre companies. He sets up and operates equipment during concerts and live performances, doing more physical work, by his own admission, than he'd ever planned on doing at his age.

And he loves it.

Our lunch opened with my typical lamentations, but he deftly switched gears and started sharing stories from the road, chatting about his experiences like it wasn't over six years since we'd talked. It was not only inspiring to hear that things were going well for him, but also to hear that he was doing what he loved and making his living now with absolutely no regrets. And I mentioned to him that I could only hope to be so lucky as to achieve the same thing. His response: "Keep dreaming."

Believe me, I want to. It's really hard right now, staring down a future that is more indefinite than I've ever known it to be. But I do know there are a few things I have going for me already, and I plan on riding those things out to their foregone conclusions in the hopes that I'll get a few more answers than I've gotten so far. It's hard to stay positive, to keep reminding myself that things are going to work out, but every now and again you meet a few people that remind you it's possible. I may not be living the dream right now, but at least I feel like that dream may actually come to life soon.

It's not much, but it's better than I was thinking and feeling on Monday. Time will tell if it'll only last the week, to be replaced this time next week by more self-doubt and loathing. All I do know for sure is that something's gotta give soon--and I only hope it's as a result of the big picture coming more clearly into focus.

Early Review: The Unit

Here we go again, back to the old LibraryThing early review backlog!

Today's as-always-delinquent selection is Ninni Holmqvist's debut novel, the dystopian The Unit, translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy and published in translation in June of 2009. I have reprinted my review below for the benefit of those who may be interested.

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Ninni Holmqvist's debut novel The Unit is a good book that could be a great book, a work that raises a number of interesting questions about the kinds of things we take for granted. But it is a novel about identity that leaves the reader to question more about the narrator's identity than we probably should. It starts strong, builds an intriguing premise, but falls sadly flat at the end.

The novel's protagonist is fifty-year-old Dorrit Weger, a spouse-less, childless woman whose age has caused her to be moved to the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material. Her dystopic near-future Sweden demands that all "dispensable" members of society move to these units and undergo mandatory scientific testing and organ donation, for the benefit of those "indispensable" people (namely parents and important job-holders) out in the community. As time progresses, the sheen of the unit's easygoing, carefree life wears off and Dorrit finds herself suddenly needing to make a very difficult choice.

The fact that the novel is narrated in the first-person gives us an excellent insight into Dorrit, whose acceptance of her new life is very subtly interposed with her understanding that not everything is like it seems in the unit. Granted, those with a wide breadth of experience in dystopian literature will find little innovative in what Holmqvist says, the surprise is perhaps that the unit is fairly transparently nefarious. So we see this all through Dorrit's eyes, eyes that are much less transparent as the novel progresses.

Sadly, Dorrit's supporting cast is far less intriguing than Dorrit herself. The most significant secondary characters are Johannes, the older man with whom Dorrit finds love in the unit, and Alice, whose significant battery of tests and donations makes her the benchmark of how one's life in the unit becomes increasingly more uncomfortable. Other characters serve to help build the notion that the unit is a caring, accepting community, but the conversations Dorrit has with her fellow dispensables are far less intriguing and insightful than they probably ought to be.

Despite this issue, the novel is thematically very strong. Holmqvist does a nice (if a touch obvious) job of weaving threads of feminine identity into the the proceedings, particularly the ways in which dispensable females are missing the experience of being a mother. Motherhood is a critical facet of the novel, particularly in the later stages, and the commentary Holmqvist offers through her mouthpiece Dorrit on aging and gender are extremely fascinating and worth considering--especially in light of contemporary debates on healthcare reform and the impending failure of social security.

But where the novel trips up is in its resolution. Without divulging too much, Dorrit's choices in the final two parts of the novel don't seem to be motivated by anything identifiable in the early parts. Two moments in particular are baffling: the point at which she admits, without provocation, that two key plots points are actually fabrications; and the final chapter, which almost completely undoes most of Part 3. It's hard to decipher what Holmqvist was trying to do here, but the sudden unreliability of the narrator undoes a great deal of the work she'd accomplished in the rest of the text. Rather than leave the reader intrigued, the ending leaves him scratching his head wondering what exactly has happened and why.

Though the novel's execution is far less crisp in the end than it is at the beginning, The Unit is nevertheless an engaging and thought-provoking work. It is very readable and reasonably paced for the most part, proving that Holmqvist is a very capable writer whose talent just needs a little bit of tweaking. If nothing else, The Unit serves as evidence that she is an author whose future work will likely be well worth waiting for.

The Customer Isn't Always Right

I know for a fact that the Starbucks Coffee Company will not live or die as a result of the three dollars they just received from me--three dollars for a Caramel Macchiato, sitting in a cup right next to my laptop right now as I sit waiting in their E. College Ave. location. Nevertheless, I felt exceptionally good about the money I spent on this drink, for a reason you might not suspect.

Having worked in food service and retail for approximately six consecutive years in my teens, I understand that it is an unforgiving profession. Whether you in your travels want to admit this or not, the people behind the counter or register are, occasionally, trying to serve you as best they can. Sure, they can be cold and rude and unhelpful on occasion, but if they really were that ineffective or foul-tempered all the time, they wouldn't be employed for very long. What I'm trying to get at here is that sometimes, the clerk's shitty mood is actually the fault of the customer--perhaps not you, but someone behind you that has left an indelibly crappy mark on his or her day.

Case in point: an older woman (perhaps in her 50s or 60s) came up to the counter and asked the clerk something in a voice I could not hear clearly. He responded that they only do samples three times a day, but that the cookies are available for purchase if she was interested. The woman proceeded to launch a passive-aggressive tirade explaining that she would never come back to that Starbucks again. She even went so far as to tell the children that were accompanying her that the store was "stingy," and when stores are that cheap, they don't deserve her business. She proceeded to take her drinks and leave.

I was intrigued by the exchange, and particularly by the manner in which the clerks and baristas handled both themselves and the situation. They were professional, straightforward, and polite--all while simultaneously remaining unwilling to kowtow to the rude and unreasonable requests of this snarky woman. I was, as I typically am, thrilled to see people refuse to acknowledge those who believe they are, for no good reason, more deserving or privileged than others.

All of this I observed while seated at the very table I am at now. I'd been here for about a half hour, and was sitting waiting for Darrell to arrive and help me pass the time while Karen defended her Master's essay. I had bought no drink and was simply planning on mooching the free Internet and killing time in peace while spending no money. But the interaction between the staff and the woman was such that I couldn't keep out of my chair.

I went to the counter and ordered a Caramel Macchiato. Then I asked the barista making my drink what had happened. Turns out she was a "regular" whose orders were exceptionally demanding and complicated, whose children left messes at all the tables they used when they came in, and whose sensibilities were apparently incensed by the clerks refusal to give all her children a sample of one of the cookies. Upon hearing the entire story, I told them in no uncertain terms that the only reason I'd purchased my drink was because of how marvelously they had handled the situation--right down to the clearly sarcastic but absolutely deserved "Have a wonderful day, ma'am!" the barista delivered as she left.

I didn't buy the drink because I thought Starbucks desperately needed my three dollars. But I felt good about spending it because I understand how difficult the situation must have been for them, and they handled it with aplomb. Little Miss Demanding was entirely in the wrong, trying to take advantage of the outdated mantra that the customer is always right. What most people these days fail to realize is that the expression, while generally true, does have its limits. And when you ask a place of business to just give you something for free, they are well within their rights to refuse--and when they do, it is you, and not them, that are wrong.

So kudos to the men in black and green for defusing the situation well. They've been laughing about and discussing it for the past fifteen minutes, and it's been great to overhear them because even now there's no malice, just disbelief and frustration. It's a nice reminder that they're not just obnoxious douchebags who want nothing to do with you--they're flesh-and-blood humans with a job to do who only want to do it as easily, effectively, and quickly as possible. And sure, we're all pretty jaded when it comes to service and retail because of the Clerksian notion that just because they serve you doesn't mean they like you. But how much of that do we bring on ourselves because we selfishly think we're entitled to something special because they're the server and we're the customer?

If I learned anything from my time at Trader Joe's, it's that good retail is not a one-way street: it's an exchange. A clerk's attempts to serve you well only succeed if you are willing to give a little bit back too. That's not some radical, brilliant notion either--just good old fashioned common sense and human decency. Wouldn't it be great to see those things making a comeback?