Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #152618 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 204 pages

Synopsis
This book features completely original humour from the creator of "The Best Page in the Universe". In this book, legendary online humorist Maddox transfers his world-famous flair for acerbic observation to the printed page. Maddox, creator of the legendary "I Am Better Than Your Kids" feature - which circled the globe as an email humour favourite, makes his non-electronic debut with the hilarious "Alphabet of Manliness". Containing reams of brand new material not covered on the site, "The Alphabet of Manliness" is bigger, bolder and more outrageously provocative than any of the low-cal stuff purveyed by other webby misanthropes, and it comes from the number one ranked blog spot on the net. It includes rants on anything and everything from the most sarcastic mind on the planet, real or virtual.

Customer Reviews

Not as Biblical as you might expect
If this were a proper review, I'd start by introducing Maddox to the readership. However, it isn't. If you don't know who Maddox is- visit his site. There's enough to keep you reading for hours on end, some of it truly hilarious. There's also no point in paying to read an unknown author when there's a vast supply of free sample material online. The first "buy or not" decision comes as soon as you read his site. If you don't find that funny, there's absolutely no point in reading this book.

To everyone who is already instantly familiar with Maddox: when this book was announced it seemed like a huge event, especially as the man himself gave it plenty of tongue-in-cheek over-hype. If you're expecting the medium of a book to expand the scope and quality of his humour, you'll be dissapointed. The Alphabet of Manliness is not funnier than his site, and neither is it significantly different in overall style of humour.

So what is it? It centres entirely on one of Maddox's avenues of humour: manliness. Disguised as a glossary come self-help are 26 comic articles on everything from Chuck Norris (the geek staple) to Urinal Etiquette, aided by loads of well-drawn pictures (by pro artists rather than the hand-drawn stuff Maddox uses on his own site) and some faux-mathematical charts. And that's it really - a couple of hundred pages of funny walk-throughs to machismo related subjects. Essentially you're paying for a concentrated and portable dose of Maddox rather than something new or innovative.

The principle problem with this is that it narrows Maddox's humour down to a pretty limited set of topics. There's no room for his disgusted rants against most of popular culture, no hilarious film reviews, no dismissal of children's art/idiotic mail. Very little of his observational humour on a variety of iritating everyday things get a look in (although the Irate entry provides a condensed version).

One thing that is important to note is that The Alphabet of Manliness is not part of this American resurgance of machismo in reaction to metrosexuality. If anything, this is a parody of those values: a grossly exaggerated charicature of macho fuelled by the fact that Maddox is someone who would like to smash up the mundanity of life. He recognises the stupidity of masculinity as much as the subjects he attacks with it. Don't be put off by the notion that this is for macho men and it's about macho men. All the humour is derived from male-orientated topics, but there's nothing here to turn away feminine readers. All you need to get a good laugh out of the knowledge that all the offensive content is not genuine or malicious. And the acceptance that you're just getting a monstrous entry of his website in book form rather than something revolutionary, of course.

The Book its everything you expected
This book is fantastic, but i must stress do not take anything in it seriously, if your pretty religious like i am you may be offended in some parts, but on the whole this book was hilarious and its "rocked my face off" as Maddox would put it. If you are used to reading his material online you will notice the book is different in the style of writting but this is only because your used to electronic, its still as witty and sarcastic as any article that came before. Ok some parts have been rehashed and you would have read it before, infact some jokes have been borrowed from films and is the only reason it gets a 4 and not a 5 on this occassion.

Incredible and fascinating
I bet you will be speechless right after you read the first few pages. They are that astonishing, original and provocative. I laughed out loud so many times because this is one of the very best humoristic book I have ever laid eyes on and I am an avid reader. My impressions about the author and his great entertainment are entirely based on this truly very, very manly book. It is organized into 26 small sections, one for each letter of the alphabet.

I am sure that you won't be able to put it down after you read just the first one dedicated to A** kicking. I don't know whether you will grow extra hair and your testosterone will skyrocket after you read the book but I am sure that you will be thrilled to have a copy of it and reread it again and again. Additional bestseller worth praising as well is "Scientificlly guaranteed male multiple orgasms and ultimate sex". I dare say that these books are a great pair and will open your eyes for so many "must know" manly secrets. Keep it up.