Sarah Ban Breathnach wanted to offer men the same reflective book that she offered women in Simple Abundance. Yet, she also knew that she needed a man to help her represent an authentic male experience, a book that mined beneath the "Men Are from Mars" stereotypes and "Iron John" expectations. So she joined forces with Michael Segell, former "Men's Mind" columnist for Esquire and author of Standup Guy. From there, the duo gathered these contemplative, humorous, and mature essays written by a diverse sampling of men, including a backwoods hermit, mystical rabbi, and world renowned rock star.

Segell writes the poignant introductions to the essays while Ban Breathnach inserts her personal responses at the end of particularly provocative essays. At times she sounds like an interloper in a "boy's only" tree fort club, her comments sounding out of place within these private moments of male bonding. Yet she forces readers, men and women alike, to acknowledge the feminine within the male experience, a lofty goal that we tend to resist. Contributors include Sting, who talks about the difference between thrill seeking and risk taking in "Let Your Soul Be Your Rookie." Adventure writer Tim Cahill writes about "The Bravest Thing I Ever Did"--face his panic disorder as his vomited his way through an un-aired television interview. And Thomas Moore speaks to the ecstasy of melding spirituality and sexuality. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
The creator of the mega-selling series aims to expand the simplicity movement's magic to the male market. With no less an ideal than bringing men and women closer together, Breathnach and collaborator Segell, an MSNBC and New York Daily News columnist, have assembled 52 original essays that succeed remarkably well in depicting men's feelings and complexity. The stellar contributors include novelists Rick Bass, Jim Harrison, Larry Brown, Richard Bausch and musician/activist Sting as well as a champion surfer, an army general, a rabbi (bestselling author Shmuley Boteach) and a hermit who writes amusingly on solitude. Distinguished across the board by their honesty, a number of the pieces are moving, such as Christopher Dickey's account of finally coming to terms with his father, poet James Dickey, or a businessman's empathetic account of his wife's battle with breast cancer. Others are funny (such as Roy Blount Jr.'s suggestion that weddings be centered around the groom in "The Great Groomal Expo"), enlightening (Benjamin Cheever on what he thinks makes a woman beautiful) and shocking (a photographer tells of brutal killings he witnessed in Soweto, South Africa). At times, however, the commentary linking the essays to Simple Abundance precepts of gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy feels imposed and unnecessary given the caliber of the writing and contributors' depth of feeling. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Books mapping men's feelings are hard to come by. This title, the first under Scribner's Simple Abundance Press imprint, blends the voices of 52 men from all walks of life into a beautiful picture of stories and relationships. Divided into three sections that examine men's departures, crossroads, and endings in life, the book is appealing for the great variety of its biographical vignettes. The most interesting contributors are Gen. James Jones, Roy Blount Jr., Rick Bass, and Reynolds Price. Ending each of the six subsections are Greg Bestick and Jake Morrissey's "thoughts for the road," whimsical top ten lists like "What every man worth his salt should know how to do." According to that list, he should be able to ask for directions, change a tire, make a child laugh, and tell a ghost story. Breathnach's previous books (e.g., Simple Abundance) zoomed to the top of the best sellers lists, and her latest effort is destined to do the same.-DLisa Wise, Broome Cty. P.L., Binghamton, NY Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Breathnach has established something of a franchise with her best-selling Simple Abundance daybooks and journals. Here, she inaugurates her new Scribner imprint with a collection of 50-plus pieces on men's experiences, edited by Michael Segell, a former Esquire editor and columnist. The book's sections cover family, emotional and moral concerns, men's roles and obligations, success and failure, amusements and obsessions, and the deepest values in life. Most entries open with a Segell introduction and are followed by a brief reaction from Breathnach; each section closes with "Thoughts for the Road," a list of suggestions. Contributors include respected novelists (Rick Bass, Jim Harrison, Reynolds Price), journalists (Roy Blount, Harold Evans), pop-culture figures (Sting, director Garry Marshall), and representatives of religious and spiritual movements (Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Roshi Jakusho Kwong, Thomas Moore). They also include a hermit, a surfing champion, a high-tech entrepreneur, aviators, scientists, and academics. As the sample authors suggest, while the dominant forms here are memoir and meditation, the volume's essays (most not previously published) also include humor and exhortation. Likely to circulate where Breathnach's previous works have been popular. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
The Authentic Journey Continues -- for Women to Understand Men, and for Men to Understand Themselves.

Download Description
Organized into sections that examine the departures, crossroads, and destinations that occur in every man's life, this volume is a candid collection of more than 50 essays written by men from a wide array of experience. From Sting, who speaks honestly about risk, to essayist Rick Bass, who explores men's grief, the essays in this book provide a celebration of what it means to be a man today.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Our Reviews
"My philosophy celebrates living authentically," explains Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of the bestselling Simple Abundance books. In her new volume, A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance, Ban Breathnach realizes this philosophy once more by collecting more than 50 essays that describe men's experience. Each essay focuses on a different aspect of men's lives, but each speaks truly about what men know.

What men know, of course, is a lot. In A Man's Journey, we find essays about everything from family to solitude, from work to diversion. Editor Michael Segell, best known for his "Men's Mind" column in Esquire magazine, sorts these essays into general sections that, put together, describe every man's passage. The essays trace men's origins, struggles, duties, dreams, philosophies, and hobbies. They form a blurred map to a man's world.

But though the book as a whole describes every man's journey, each essay insists on the singularity of one man's path. The essays are unselfconscious, open -- authentic. In "A Broken Heart," for example, writer Charles Siebert details his father's death in terms as personal as they are blunt. He writes: "I realized that for the sake of the brave, quietly dignified man in the room behind me, I should start to get a grip. I remember actually asking him at one point in the throes of my heart hysteria how he did it, how he lived from day to day knowing how frail his heart was. 'Well,' he said, looking a bit startled by his clever son's fatuousness, 'what choice do I have?' " Siebert's quiet depiction of failure -- the failure of his father's heart, the failure of his own empathy -- moves us more than treacly heroism ever could. His experience is unique and rings true.

A Man's Journey includes the reflections of many such startling writers. But it also includes the notes and ruminations of nonwriters. Millard Fuller, the millionaire who founded Habitat for Humanity, provides a plainspoken account of his life's lowest point. Dr. Charles Simonyi, an elite programmer at Microsoft, enthuses about the moment in which he understood order. And Sting, the musician and songwriter, offers a genuine, understated history of his life's risks. "True risk, that sudden leap into cold water, can carry you into a state of grace," he explains. "Coincidences, synchronicity, chance, karmic charm, it doesn't matter what you call it; there's a positive force that intervenes to cover your back. Things click. It makes sense because true risk is the only thing that forces spiritual and emotional growth so immediately, so dramatically."

The men whose essays appear here speak from widely divergent perspectives. But each speaks honestly, authentically, about the experiences that form him. In collecting these essays, Sarah Ban Breathnach and Michael Segell have created an outline of men's journeys that acknowledges the specificity of each man￯﾿ﾽs path. It's a collection worth reading for its breadth and scope -- and for its singular, startling passages.

--Jesse Gale

Some men tend to keep their distance from self-help books for fear that the advice will be too "touchy-feely" and attempt to force them to go against who they are. With that in mind, Sarah Ban Breathnach, bestselling author of the Simple Abundance series, has created a book just for men: A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance. This latest work is a compendium of essays by men about men, and it's designed both for men and for women who are interested in a better understanding of the world men live in today.

The contributors are a varied lot, and there is a diversity of careers represented: from rock stars to writers to professional hunters. There are six sections to this book, with essays by such luminaries as Roy Blount Jr., Harold Evans, Rick Bass, Tim Cahill, and Sting.

The pieces range from thoughtful to humorous, with such topics as "Fathers to the Community" and "Ten Things I Hope My Kids Learn Sooner Than I Did." There are also essays about work, money, success, and, of course, those mysterious creatures, women.

With this enriching collection, everyone can find something to treasure in each essay.

Jennifer J. Jarett is a freelance writer living in New York City.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

After empowering millions of women through her ground-breaking Simple Abundance and its companion volumes, Sarah Ban Breathnach was deluged by requests that she create "a Rosetta stone for understanding men". The long awaited result is A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance, a celebration of what it means to be a man today.

Organized into three sections that examine the departures, crossroads, and destinations that occur in every man's life, A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance is a candid and courageous collection of more than fifty essays written by men who come from a wide array of experience and perspective. From Sting, who speaks honestly about risk, to movie producer David Brown, who writes about the art of flirting, to award-winning essayist Rick Bass, who explores men's grief, the essays in the book define different aspects of men's lives.

A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance offers a road map for men in search of their authentic self. It promises to be as valuable to Sarah's growing audience of men as it will to the legions of women who wish to better understand the men in their lives.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The creator of the mega-selling series aims to expand the simplicity movement's magic to the male market. With no less an ideal than bringing men and women closer together, Breathnach and collaborator Segell, an MSNBC and New York Daily News columnist, have assembled 52 original essays that succeed remarkably well in depicting men's feelings and complexity. The stellar contributors include novelists Rick Bass, Jim Harrison, Larry Brown, Richard Bausch and musician/activist Sting as well as a champion surfer, an army general, a rabbi (bestselling author Shmuley Boteach) and a hermit who writes amusingly on solitude. Distinguished across the board by their honesty, a number of the pieces are moving, such as Christopher Dickey's account of finally coming to terms with his father, poet James Dickey, or a businessman's empathetic account of his wife's battle with breast cancer. Others are funny (such as Roy Blount Jr.'s suggestion that weddings be centered around the groom in "The Great Groomal Expo"), enlightening (Benjamin Cheever on what he thinks makes a woman beautiful) and shocking (a photographer tells of brutal killings he witnessed in Soweto, South Africa). At times, however, the commentary linking the essays to Simple Abundance precepts of gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy feels imposed and unnecessary given the caliber of the writing and contributors' depth of feeling. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal