The real deal

Recently there has been a totally understandable trend in men's health publishing of trying to find a new angle. Men aren't interested in health as such, runs the argument, so you have to catch them in another way. Ian Bank's brilliant Man Manual written in the style of a car repair book is an example. My own book All Right, Mate? with its running narrative is another.  

The result is that the men's health bookshop has been crying out for a solid, mainstream, gimmick-free title for a while now. It is, after all, eight years since Sarah Brewer's Complete Book of Men's Health. That book is excellent - Brewer handles the penis, for example, superbly - but it is about time we lads proved that we can do Complete too. And, at last, Peter Baker has done it for us. Ian Banks rightly calls this 'the book every man has been waiting for'

Written by the Director of the Men's Health Forum, this easy-to-read, thoroughly-researched book is truly comprehensive and wide-ranging. Real Health For Men works as both a reference book and as a good continual read, something I thought was an impossible trick to pull off until I read it – all in all, an incredible achievement in barely 250 pages.

Don't take any notice of the cover. What was the designer on? Just open the book and read it.

Peter Baker, Real Health For Men (Vega 2002) ISBN: 1843330148