Book Reviews April 2024

Book Review: Man Uncivilized by Traver Boehm (Affiliate link)

This is hard hitting book that will get you thinking about how you show up as a man as well as what you need to work on within yourself. I found this book to be emotional and thought provoking from the first page to the last page. The author doesn’t pull any punches and if you take his words in you will come out the other side a better man and person for reading and applying the wisdom in this book.

Book Review: Today I Rise by Traver Boehm (affiliate link)

I wish I had read this book after my second divorce or that it had been available after my first divorce. I wish I had read it after my most recent breakup…But better later than never. While I am in a relationship now I went ahead and read this book and found it to be full of really good advice that has helped me have some conversations with myself and my current partner as well as helping me fully move on from past relationships. If you’re going through a divorce or breakup this book can be a valuable companion to help you on your journey.

Book Review: Hold on to your N.U.T.S. by Wayne Levine (Affiliate link)

This is a must read book for any man who wants to become a better romantic partner to his wife/partner. The author provides some valuable tools that can help you do your inner work while also showing up for your partner. I began applying these skills in my relationship and noticed an immediate improvement in the relationship and how I showed up. I recommend reading the book and then applying the skills. Make sure you also talk with other men so you can do the work together.

Book Review: Love Between Equals By Polly Young-Eisendrath (affiliate link)

At times this book is preachy and the author makes clear from the beginning that she doesn’t think polyamorous relationships are viable. Nonetheless there are a lot of gems in this book about building conscious relationship with your partner. I read this book and applied it to my relationship to consider and recognize how I could show up with more conscious awareness and consideration about accepting my partners as they show up. It’s a dense read but there’s a lot worth considering in this book about building a spiritual and conscious relationship with your love.

Book Review: The Man’s Guide to Women by John Gottman, Julie Gottman Douglas Abrams, Rachel Carlton Abram (Affiliate link)

This is a must read book if you’re a man who wants to be a hero instead of a zero in your relationships with women. This book provided some valuable insights about the differences between men and women and shares how men can show up better with their women and get better results in the relationship. Whether you’re struggling in your relationship or having a good relationship in the moment, this book will provide insights that help you to have a great relationship.

Book Review: Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves (Affiliate Link)

The author provides a well research book that shows the challenges that boys and men face in education, the workplace and other facets of life, as well as showing those struggles are being mostly ignored due to politics on both sides. The author offers several solutions. This is a much needed book that illustrates why social and economic policies need to focus on all people, in different ways, but in ways that level the playing field for everyone.

Book Review: Atomic Habits by James Clear (affiliate link)

This is a useful book that breaks down the anatomy of habits and shows you how to create healthy habits and end bad habits. The author’s processes are easy to work with and implement, provided you’re willing to make a habit of them!

Book Review: No Bad Parts By Richard Schwartz (Affiliate link)

In No Bad Parts the author shares the internal family system of parts therapy and walks readers through how it works with practical examples. This is a fascinating book that explores how to apply the IFS system to your own inner work. I’ve used it to help me do some work with my parts and I will continue to make it part of my inner work practice.

Book Review: Addicted to the Monkey Mind by JF. Benoist (affiliate link)

This book explores how to recognize the monkey mind chatter of our thoughts and emotions which cause reactions. The author offers some mindfulness practices around using the observing mind. The book is presented in an anecdotal context, which makes it more user friendly. Overall I found the book helpful as a supplement to existing practices that I’m doing.

Book Review: Taking Responsibility by Nathaniel Branden (Affiliate link)

The author focuses on how people can take responsibility for their lives. It’s a book that many people might have reactions to because of how much it focuses on individualism, but I think the underlying practice is sound. I appreciated the sentence stem practice as well as the overall focus on how to take responsibility in different areas of one’s life. I have been applying it to my life and have felt more confidence as a result.

Book Reviews for 2023

The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels (affiliate link)

This is one of the most helpful self help books I’ve read, mainly because it provides practical tools you can use to change your life. Of course you have to apply these tools to make them useful, but using them has proven to be very helpful to me. Consistent application of them has helped me work through fear and resistance and helped me continue a process of creating the life I want to live.

From the Core by John Wineland (Affiliate link)

This was a fascinating and relevant book for me to read, especially as I’ve been continuing to explore my journey into sacred masculinity. The author explores what it means to be rooted to the core of your masculinity and shares how this expresses itself in the relationships you have with other people in your life. I found a lot of the advice relevant, especially in light of starting a new relationship. I found myself changing certain behaviors and being more rooted in a way that honored the people in my life and created better relationships. If you want to live a rooted life in your masculine power this is a good book to help you with that process.

The Masculine in Relationship by GS Youngblood (Affiliate link)

Reading this book helped me get clarity around my relationship with my partner. It helped me see past patterns that hadn’t worked and allowed me to make changes that have helped me really show up in a way where I can lead my partner from my masculine core and enjoy her feminine come out as a result. There is a wealth of information in this book that can help a man step into a truly intimate and deep relationship with his partner.

Men’s Work by Connor Beaton (Affiliate link)

Men’s work provides a no holds barred approach to doing the deep work all men need to do if they want to truly step into their masculine identity. In this book the author provides helpful exercises that enable you to explore your relationship with your emotions, and other areas of your life. I found this book to be very helpful on my journey to explore the sacred masculine.

Circles of Men by Clay Boykin (affiliate link)

Circles of Men provides another perspective on how to create and form men’s groups. The author attempts to differentiate how his approach to men’s groups is different from other models but from what I can tell it’s a fairly similar approach. I still found this book helpful to read and it gave me ideas on how I can better facilitate the groups I am part of.

The choose yourself guide to wealth by James Altucher (affiliate link)

This book continues what James shared in the original title Choose yourself, only he looks at it from the perspective of wealth. It’s filled with James sense of humor but also provides some valuable insights on how to explore the generation of wealth through ideas, networking, and being of service to other people. I found it helpful in terms of mindset and changing how I approach my own wealth generation strategies.

Wired for love by Stan Tatkin (Affiliate link)

In this book the author introduces the concept of the couple bubble, where you create a container for your relationship and focus on getting to know your partner and learning to recognize their patterns of behavior, so you can anticipate and be in better relationship with them. I found the book to be helpful in terms of understanding my partner and her communication style as well as recognizing my communication style and the shortcomings I have…as well as how to work on them and the relationship better as a result.

Book Review: Celebrating the Male Mysteries by RJ Stewart (affiliate link)

In Celebrating the Male Mysteries, RJ Stewart shares the importance of exploring the masculine mysteries and presents a healthy vision of what such mysteries can look like as well as how they can interface into mystery traditions in general. Practical exercises and theory are presented as well as specific visualizations that men can use for sacromagical work. I recommend reading through the book once and then going back through and doing the exercises. This book can be an excellent companion to other men’s work books and offers another valuable resource for creating healthy masculinity and relationships.

Book Review: The Hazards of Being Male by Herb Goldberg (affiliate link)

This book shares the hard truth about male privilege, and how the so-called privilege of men is anything but a privilege. While this book was written in the 1970’s it could accurately describe the experience most men go through even now. Reading this book made me angry and made me realize how trashed men are for the supposed privilege we have, when in reality we end up paying a lot for the privilege we get. This book was eye-opening and helped me recognize how much discrimination men experience in no small part of because of the roles they are thrust into. It also speaks a simple truth: It is up to each man to free himself of the toxic expectations of society and in the process become a self-actualized man.

Book Review: The Passion Trap by Dean Delis with Cassandra Philips (Affiliate link)

This is a fascinating book which explores how to recognize an unbalanced relationship and your role in that relationship as well as work to right the relationship. As I read this book I found myself thinking about all my relationships and recognizing when I had been the one down or one up in the relationship. I’ve also begun applying what I’m reading to my current relationship to help me find a better balance in the relationship.

Book Review: The Male Mysteries by Nikki Dorakis (affiliate link)

In this book the author shares rites and rituals that can be used as coming of age or initiations for men’s mysteries in a Pagan context. This is a fascinating book which can really help men both in terms of using what’s in the book, but also designing their own male mysteries.

Book Review: Swamplands of the Soul (Affiliate link) by James Hollis

In this book the author explores how to deal with the inevitable realities of moments in our lives when we feel depression, sadness, loss, betrayal and other emotions. He shares that rather than trying to always be happy we should strive for meaning and provides some useful perspectives via Jungian psychology on how a person might do this. It’s another excellent book by this author.

Book Review: When Sorry isn’t Enough by Gary Chapman and Jennifer Thomas (Affiliate link)

Other than the occasional sermon on Christianity, this is a really good book to read on how to apologize. The author shares that there are multiple apology languages and discusses how to discover the apology language that applies to the person you are apologizing to, as well as how to identify your own apology language. I’ve already applied the teachings of this book to my apologies and its helping a lot with being able to make good apologies.