How to Back Up a Trailer: ...and 101 Other Things Every Real Guy Should Know

by Kurt Anderson

The Manual No Real Guy Should Be Without

Motor oil, beer, and charcoal--that's what real men are made of. A real man should be able to swap out the car's spark plugs and change its oil as his freshly caught fish smokes on open flame--all while shotgunning a beer. For how-to instructions on these and other equally manly activities, you need How to Back Up a Trailer . It's the ultimate guide to everything you better know how to do, like rotate your car's tires and change its brake pads, swing a bat like a homerun hitter, build and light a campfire during a rainstorm, install an electrical outlet in your home, and tap a keg for the perfect beer flow.

Read it. Learn it. Live it. With How to Back Up a Trailer , you'll never have to stop and ask for directions again.

Genres: Nonfiction, Reference, Humor, Personal Development, Self Help

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most people that know me would think I'd never pick up this book. Um... well it was a good read. I learned a lot. Picked it up off the walden books shelf because I'd been having trouble backing up my ambualnce at the time figured hey why not.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to Back Up A Trailer is a collection of Manly Advice for Men. Sportsball, beer, motor oil, and other things that certain men like. I picked this book up at the store for a few reasons. First off, I am a sucker for books that tell you how to do things properly. Secondly, the book was cheap. Thirdly, they had a successful marketing ploy of putting it at the front of the store where you can easily find it.

The book is pretty good. It is filled with great advice like how to operate a stick shift/ manual transmission in a vehicle, how to start a fire in terrible weather. Thrown in the mix are gems like how to build a potato gun, how to get out of a speeding ticket, and so on. It talks about the rules of Poker and Blackjack, which are somewhat complicated games. Some of the advice is completely pointless to me. Take advice on smoking a cigar, this is something I can not see myself doing. The same goes for a lot of golf advice. It isn’t like I am proud of it, but I will probably never be able to drive a manual transmission. I just can’t see myself buying a car with that feature.

The main content of the book is delivered in text. Sprinkled in the book are little pictures of things that the advice talks about. For instance, when it talks about doing things with your vehicle, there are little images that show things like solenoids and where the spark plugs would be. The book contains six major sections with advice in each split into tiny essays. So it covers General Automotive things, Sports, Social Events, Home and Garage Repair, Outdoor things, and Cooking.

[Brian Koser · Rating 3 out of 5]

The benefit to this book (and to curated collections in general) is that you come across items you weren't aware of or were not interested in. There's a lot of good info here, and it was mostly new to me. Unfortunately, it's hard to make a how-to book work in the days of YouTube, which is "free" and a more visual medium. Ideally the publisher would have printed a larger size with more illustrations for the hard-to-visualize instructions, but I'm sure it was an economic decision to not. Sorry, Kurt.

2.5 stars

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute book! Fun as a gift for young men.

[A.R. Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty standard information such as cleaning fish, loading firearms, driving a manual stick shift.

[Sabrina · Rating 2 out of 5]

It just wasn't that entertaining. I will admit I skipped lots of parts because I can guarantee I will NEVER need to know how to field dress or gut anything. Honestly, the best parts of the book were the parts at the beginning of the sections where the author told a little anecdote, supposedly from his own life. All in all, I wish I'd spent my time reading one of the dozen other books currently on my "to read" list.

[Tyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly interesting and somewhat informative. I knew most of the tips and tricks discussed in this book but it is a handy little reference to have around the house. A must for people who don't know anything about cars; this will help you learn to diagnose problems, teach you how to change your oil and spark plugs, and more.

[Zack Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anderson compiled a masculine list of tasks, yes, but he failed in explaining them. His tone is approachable and friendly, but his descriptions cut too many corners. Nevertheless, the true merit in this book is in the chapter titles: knowing the 102 tasks that every man (or woman) should know how to do.

[Connor M]

This is a very useful book, I have learned a lot from it. You can learn about how to do different things, like backing up a trailer for example. I definitely recommend this book to people that want to learn skills

[Kathy]

Great fun book to have around. It is filled with tons of trivia and helpful tips.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

ISBN: 978-1-59869-493-2
List Price: 12.95

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

it good and quite helpfull