When Kate and I were newly married 20 years ago, we had a goal to pay off our debt, made up of tens of thousands of dollars in student and car loans. So we did what plenty of folks did at the time: we picked up a copy of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover and followed his plan for getting ourselves financially square.

Our combined income was paltry, but we pinched a lot of pennies and budgeted by putting cash in envelopes allocated to different expenses; once the cash was gone, we couldn’t spend any more. And we did the debt snowball, where you pay off your smallest debt first, then roll that payment into the next smallest one. The snowball worked for us. It gave us a lot of psychological momentum and helped us pay off all of our debt in a few years.

Another step in Ramsey’s plan is to get rid of your credit cards. The idea is that if you have problems with spending, you don’t want easy access to buy things on credit. Kate and I are both frugal by nature, so buying stuff we wanted with credit cards wasn’t a problem for us, but we got rid of ours anyway. We were both pretty philosophically anti-consumerist, and ditching our credit cards felt countercultural and contrarian. And it feels cool to be countercultural and contrarian. Our perspective was: we’re committed to never buying stuff we don’t have money for, so why would we need a credit card?

So we started relying exclusively on cash and debit cards for buying stuff. And by and large, it worked fine; you can get through most of life using just a debit card.

But in recent years, we’ve started traveling more as a family, and I noticed that not having a credit card was making things a hassle. For one, plenty of car rental companies won’t let you rent with a debit card, and the ones that do often make you jump through extra hoops. On one trip, I thought I had reserved a car with a company that took debit cards, but when we got to the counter, I discovered they had stopped taking them a few months earlier. So we were scrambling to find a car we could rent for the week. That was stressful.

Buying plane tickets became a hassle too. With how dang expensive tickets are, every time we bought them, I had to call the bank and ask them to raise our debit limit. Sometimes I’d be on hold for 20 minutes to talk to a banker, then on hold for another 10 while they got the increase approved by their manager.

At the same time, after years of hearing about the benefits of using a credit card that earns you rewards, like airline miles, I started wondering: am I missing out by not having one?

So last year, after two decades without one, I finally got a credit card again. And I got to tell you, I’m very glad I did. It’s reduced a lot of dumb friction in our lives. Traveling is so much easier now. I can buy plane tickets without having to call the bank first. Renting a car is a breeze. Also, we’re racking up airline miles for free flights. And I’ve done it without paying any interest.

With all due respect to Ramsey, I’ve come around to seeing a credit card as a great tool. Here’s why.

The Benefits of Having a Credit Card

1. It Builds Your Credit Score

You can be financially responsible, have plenty of money in the bank, and have no debt, but still have a poor or nonexistent credit score. That makes it hard to get a car loan or mortgage at a good rate. In many states, information from your credit history can also affect your auto and homeowners insurance premiums.

Using a credit card responsibly is one of the easiest ways to build good credit, which can help you qualify for loans at better rates.

2. It Protects Your Checking Account From Fraud

Both credit and debit cards have legal protections against unauthorized transactions, but there’s a big difference between the two: when someone fraudulently uses your debit card, your money leaves your checking account immediately. If fraudulent transactions on your debit card go through, federal law provides protections to help you recover your money, but you may have to wait while the bank investigates.

With a credit card, fraudulent charges eat into your available credit and not your checking account. Federal law caps your liability for unauthorized credit card charges at $50, and lots of card issuers have zero-liability policies, so you probably won’t even pay that.

3. It Makes Travel Easier

For me, this has been the biggest benefit of getting a credit card again. Rental car companies and hotels would much rather you use a credit card for reservations and security deposits. The places that do take debit cards might put a $500 hold on your checking account that ties up your money until you return the car or check out of the hotel. And it can take several more days for the hold to disappear.

Some airline credit cards come with perks like airport lounge access, free checked bags, trip cancellation coverage, and priority boarding. The free checked bags one has been a nice perk for us. Checking a bag isn’t cheap these days, and when the whole family is flying, those fees add up. If you travel a lot, those benefits — even before the airline miles — can make a card with an annual fee worth it.

4. You Earn Rewards on Stuff You’re Already Buying

Lots of credit cards give you cash back or travel rewards for everyday purchases like groceries and gas. If you have a card that offers 2% cash back, you’d earn $600 on $30,000 of spending. When you pay your credit card statement balance in full each month and never incur any interest, that’s basically free money. Nice! Most debit cards don’t offer anything like that.

5. You Get Extra Protection on Purchases

Many credit cards offer protections beyond what a retailer gives you. Some cards extend the manufacturer’s warranty on eligible purchases. Others cover stuff that gets stolen or damaged. So if you buy something and some jagweed porch pirate swipes it off your front step, your credit card might cover the loss. And if you order something online that never shows up, or you pay a guy to fix your fence and he skips town with your deposit, you can dispute the charge with your card issuer, and they may be able to reverse it for you.

6. It Gives You More Financial Flexibility

Even when you have an emergency fund to cover big, unexpected expenses, getting to that money when you need it can be a hassle. A credit card makes covering those emergency costs easier.

For example, let’s say your furnace goes out when it’s below freezing outside. Without a credit card, you might have to transfer money from your high-yield savings account to your checking account and wait a few days for it to show up before you could pay. With a credit card, you just pay for the furnace, then move the money over from your emergency fund to cover the credit card bill at the end of the month.

Think of a credit card as a supplement to a properly funded emergency fund, not a replacement for one.

How to Use a Credit Card Responsibly

I’m only a fan of credit cards when they’re used responsibly.

Treat your credit card like a debit card and only spend money you already have. Pay your statement balance in full every month and use autopay so you never miss a payment.

Keep your credit utilization low. Using a small percentage of your available credit helps your credit score. If you’re using a lot of your available credit each month, making a payment before your statement closes can help keep your reported utilization low.

Don’t chase rewards. Spending money just to get an extra $2 back is a losing proposition.

Watch out for annual fees. Cards with premium perks can charge hundreds of dollars a year. If you don’t use those perks enough, you won’t get your money’s worth. So before you sign up for a card with a $200 annual fee, ask yourself, “Will I really use these benefits?”

Keep it simple. You don’t need five cards and some convoluted points-maximizing system (I’ve seen lots of them out there). Get one or two cards with the benefits you want and enjoy them.

Who Shouldn’t Get a Credit Card

I think Dave Ramsey’s advice to ditch your credit cards is still useful if you struggle to control your spending. People tend to spend more when they pay with a credit card, and the little dopamine hit from earning rewards only makes the temptation worse. If you consistently carry a balance or have a hard time staying within a budget, having a credit card is probably not a good idea. You’ll just be incurring interest. There’s nothing wrong with skipping credit cards if that keeps you disciplined.

Credit cards are neither good nor bad. It just depends on how you use them. The ideal is to enjoy the benefits without ever borrowing a dime at interest. That’s what we’ve done for the past year, and it’s made my life easier. I haven’t spent 30 minutes on hold with my bank just to buy plane tickets since.

Also, this whole experience was a reminder to be mindful about the advice you take from people (even AoM!). Use what works for you and ignore the rest. Ramsey’s debt snowball strategy was useful for Kate and me, but I don’t think we needed to get rid of our credit cards since using them really wasn’t a problem. Don’t follow stuff blindly. Use your practical wisdom.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Note: This is a guest post from wilderness survival expert and instructor Creek Stewart. 

I don’t remember my first kiss or even who it was with. I can barely recollect getting my license to drive. I vaguely remember my high school graduation and my entire time spent at college is a blur. However, I remember exactly where I was, what I was wearing, and how I felt when I got my first survival knife over 20 years ago. Just thinking about it brings back some of my fondest childhood memories. It was the RAMBO knife with the hollow handle that housed a little fishing kit along with a few other miscellaneous items. My love affair with knives began at a young age, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Movies seem to always have the coolest survival knives, but does the survival knife really have a place in the “real world”?

That was a rhetorical question. Yes, it most certainly does.

Despite our advancements in medicine, technology, travel, and communications, millions of people across the globe face disaster and its merciless consequences each year. In addition, thousands of individuals are thrust into unexpected and unpredictable life or death situations where survival depends on experience, knowledge, and the resources on hand. My point? It is wise to keep important survival resources close by — just in case. One of your most important survival tools is a quality knife.

The cutting blade has carved itself an indispensable place in survival history. For thousands of years, man has depended on a cutting tool of some kind to help meet basic survival needs: food, water, fire, and shelter. Now, in our modern society, we casually refer to this blade as the “survival knife.” It has certainly earned that name. However, not all survival knives are created equal.

I have the privilege of strapping a survival knife to my hip on almost a daily basis here at Willow Haven. I completely understand, though, that this isn’t practical for most. At a minimum, a survival knife should be kept accessible. You might be surprised how often you’ll use it — even if not in a survival situation. I never travel without my survival knife. I pack it in my checked baggage on the plane. I keep it on my hotel nightstand. It’s always in the console of my truck when road-tripping, and I never set off for an adventure without it. Whether fishing, backpacking, hunting, boating, skiing, hiking, or camping, my knife is a trusted companion. I’m rarely more than a stone’s throw away from it at any given moment.

A “survival knife” is just as it sounds — a knife that can help you survive. It is a tool with literally hundreds of survival-related functions. Below is a short list:

• Cutting/slicing
• Digging
• Splitting
• Self-defense
• First aid tool
• Food prep
• Shelter building
• Fire making
• Hunting weapon
• Prying tool
• Signaling
• Hammering
• Makeshift screwdriver

When it comes to your survival knife, less is typically more — despite what you may see on TV. Hang the cool movie prop knife on a wall and embrace the simplicity of a skillfully designed survival knife. Function trumps styling — always. Your first priority is performance and that will depend on a variety of time-tested key features.

6 Important Survival Knife Features

Survival Knife Feature #1: Size

Does size matter? Yes, but when it comes to your survival knife, bigger is not always better. If your blade is too big, you sacrifice the ability to effectively use it for detailed tasks such as dressing small game or carving precision snare sets.

On the flip-side, a small blade does not perform well with more rugged tasks such as batoning and chopping. Batoning is when you strike the back of your knife blade with a heavy object to drive the knife through thick or stubborn wood. This allows the blade to be used for splitting wood and cutting through large limbs and trees.

Having used many survival knives, I’ve found the ideal size to be around 9-11 inches in length. For example, my Blackbird SK-5 survival knife pictured below is 10” in OVERALL length with a 5” blade.

Survival Knife Feature #2: Fixed Blade

A fixed blade knife is more durable and reliable than a folding knife. While I love a good folder for Every Day Carry (EDC), a fixed blade has the upper hand when it comes to meeting the demands a survival situation might present.

A joint of any kind is a weakness. Minimize the risk of damaging or losing your key survival resource by choosing a knife that is better suited for pounding, chopping, thrusting, prying, and rigorous cutting.

Survival Knife Feature #3: Full Tang

Not only should your survival knife be a fixed blade, but it should also be FULL TANG. “Full tang” indicates that the blade and handle are constructed from one continuous piece of metal. Scales or grips are typically attached to the handle portion for a more comfortable grip. A full tang knife is much more robust than partial tang styles such as the half tang, push tang, or rat-tail tang. As you can see in the photo below, the profile of a full tang blade is much more substantial than its rat-tail friend.

Over time, partial tang knife blades can loosen and develop “play” in the handle — especially under demanding tasks such as batoning, prying, and chopping. If a partial tang blade comes loose from the handle, it can be very difficult (and dangerous) to use effectively. In contrast, a full tang knife blade is still very functional even if the scales come off. It can be wrapped with cordage for added comfort and grip.

There is absolutely no advantage in choosing a partial tang blade over a full tang design for your survival knife. It’s difficult to break a solid piece of continuous metal. An easy way to spot a full tang knife is to look for the metal tang sandwiched between the knife’s scales. Below are a few examples. 

Note: Not all full tang knife blades have an exposed tang as shown in these examples.

Survival Knife Feature #4: Sharp Pointed Tip

This may seem obvious, but I’ve seen many “survival knives” with angled, rounded, hooked, or straight cut flat tips. Despite any contrary argument, there are many compelling reasons why your survival knife should have a sharp pointed tip. The first is self-defense — against man or beast. Anything other than a sharp spear point tip compromises your ability to effectively thrust or stab your knife as a weapon — especially through thick fur/hide or layered clothing.

Similarly, a spear point knife can be used as a hunting weapon — either by itself or lashed to a pole to create a longer reach spear. I keep the allen wrench (which came with my knife) in my knife sheath pocket at all times. This allows me to remove the scales and lash the full tang blade almost seamlessly onto a staff as a spear-point.

On a more practical note, I find myself using the sharp knife point for all kinds of tasks while teaching survival classes and training in the field. Below is a short list of tasks in which a sharp pointed knife tip excels over other styles:

• Detailed prying and picking
• Cleaning/dressing small game such as fish
• Drilling/notching
• Clothing/gear repairs
• Splinters!
• Processing some wild edibles such as pine nuts, acorns, walnuts, and hickory nuts
• Accessing live bait in hard to get areas

Survival Knife Feature #5: Single-Edged Blade with Flat Ground Spine

Your survival knife should not have a double-edged dagger style blade. A double-edged blade is just not necessary for the vast majority of (if not all) survival uses. Actually, it can be a disadvantage.

Not only do I recommend a single-edged blade, but I prefer for the back side (spine) of my survival knife to have a flat 90 degree grind. A flat ground spine is ideal for striking a fire-starting ferro-rod. Rounded or beveled spines make this almost impossible.

I regularly use my survival knife to baton through large pieces of wood. Whether splitting firewood or constructing makeshift shelters, a sharpened back edge would make this function nearly impossible.

I also frequently use the back edge of my knife as a thumb rest for added leverage and control during tedious carving projects such as making feather sticks or notching triggers for traps and snare sets. Projects like this would be difficult and dangerous with a double-edged blade.

Survival Knife Feature #6: Solid Pommel

The “pommel” is the bottom of the knife’s handle — also referred to as the butt. I regularly use the pommel on my survival knife for light duty pounding and hammering. It’s perfect for driving in shelter stakes. I’ve also used my knife point to chip out crude ice fishing holes by pounding the pommel with a heavy stick to drive the blade into the ice. Some knives are designed with a rounded or hooked pommel that is not ideal for hammering. I believe in getting the most uses possible from your knife. A well-designed and substantial pommel only adds to your list of capabilities.

Bottom Line

Use the above 6 criteria as a benchmark for choosing a potential survival knife. Only you can decide the features on which you are and are not willing to compromise. Beyond this, pretty much everything else comes down to personal taste.

There are many survival knives on the market that include these 6 survival features, yet look nothing like each other. There are countless styling options that come down to personal preference and have little bearing on survival functionality. Some of these features include:

• Blade steel (carbon or stainless – varying options with varying results)
• Handle material (rubber, micarta, bone, antler, etc…)
• Color or finish
• Lanyard holes
• Decorative milling
• Jimping
• Serrated or non-serrated blade
• Sheath design and style
• Knife designer/manufacturer/brand
• Blade style
• With or without finger guards
• Blood groove

Conclusion

A survival knife is not a magic wand nor does it have inherent magical saving powers. The true value is in the skill of the one who wields it. Skill only comes from practice and repetition. You don’t buy a survival knife to decorate your man cave — it is a tool that’s meant to be used. Since the beginning of mankind, the cutting blade helped to shape how our ancestors hunted, fought, built, and survived. From cavemen with sharp rocks to a soldier in modern warfare, there will never be a relationship quite like that between a man and his blade. Choose yours wisely.

Remember, it’s not IF but WHEN,

Creek

______________________________________

Creek Stewart is a Wilderness Survival Instructor, author, and television host. To learn more about Creek, or to take classes, visit www.creekstewart.com.

With our archives now 4,000+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each week to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in November 2011.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann. I like to collect rules of thumb: little heuristics that help me think better. One source that collects a lot of great ones is Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg, the founder of DuckDuckGo, and statistician Lauren McCann. The book rounds up more than 300 mental models pulled from psychology, physics, economics, and other fields, and explains each one in plain English. Some you’ve probably heard of, like Hanlon’s razor: never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity (one of my favorites!). You’ll find ones you’ve never heard of either. I’ve turned to it a couple of times over the years. It’s just a good rundown of things to help you think better and make better decisions.

The Lowdown. I’ve really been enjoying FX’s crime noir show The Lowdown, created by Tulsa-based director and writer Sterlin Harjo. It’s set in my fair city and has all these crazy, spot-on references to Tulsa and Oklahoma. Ethan Hawke plays Lee Raybon, a “truthstorian” (i.e., a muckraking journalist for a local magazine) trying to solve a murder in a prominent family, using clues the victim hid in the novels of Oklahoma native Jim Thompson (he wrote The Killer Inside Me, a brutal, brutal book). The acting’s top-notch, and a lot of the cast is from Tulsa, including Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tim Blake Nelson, and Pulitzer-winning playwright Tracy Letts. Harjo has done an amazing job making a TV show that feels like reading a classic noir novel. One storyline hit close to my family: Lee steals a Fish and Wildlife Service jacket to do some snooping on a boat at Lake Keystone (I’ve been there lots of times!) and ends up coming across a paddlefish poaching operation. That was a real thing here. Back in the ’90s, Russians were coming to Oklahoma to poach paddlefish for their caviar, and my dad, a game warden and the senior agent for the Fish and Wildlife Service in the region, headed up a lot of those cases. Heads up: there’s a lot of foul language and violence (befitting the noir ethos) in this show.

Inside the unconventional college that blends classical building trades with liberal arts education. The American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, SC, is an accredited college where students major in one of six traditional building trades (blacksmithing, timber framing, and plastering among them) while taking liberal arts classes built around their craft. Instead of chemistry, for example, they take building science. The school started in 1999, when Charleston was still restoring buildings wrecked by Hurricane Hugo and had to import tradesmen from around the country because there weren’t enough locals who knew how to do the work. First-year blacksmiths forge their own hammers. It’s basically Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft turned into a college. And while professors elsewhere fret about AI, these students don’t seem worried about their job prospects: 86 percent of grads are working in their trade six months after graduation.

Lint Brush. A wool suit picks up lint and dust every time you wear it. If you let that stuff sit, the grit wears down the fibers over time. Also, having flecks of old food or dandruff on your suit isn’t a good look. So every guy who owns a suit should keep a lint brush in his closet. When I get home from church and take off my suit, I give it a good brush, and I do a quick one before I leave, too (to remove any dust that’s settled on it). You don’t need anything fancy. A natural-bristle clothes brush is the traditional choice, but a cheap velvet lint brush from the drugstore works fine. It won’t do anything for stains or wrinkles, but it’ll keep your suit looking sharp between trips to the dry cleaner.

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Some Thoughts on Friction and Sunday Firesides: A Child Can’t Choose the Roses He’s Never Seen.

Quote of the Week

Man is still responsible. He must turn the alloy of modern experience into the steel of mastery and character. His success lies not with the stars, but with himself. He must carry on the fight of self-correction and discipline. He must fight mediocrity as sin and live against the imperative of life’s highest ideal.

—Frank Curtis Williams

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

There was a time when the AoM store sold physical merchandise. Eventually, though, the ROI on doing so (shipping and fulfillment costs a lot these days!) wasn’t sufficient for us to continue, so a while back we discontinued our merch.

But to celebrate the launch of our redesign, we had to bring back an AoM tee — in a limited run!

On the front of this limited edition t-shirt is AoM’s new logo. On the back is John L. Sullivan, the last of the bare-knuckle heavyweight champions, in his famous fists-up pose from the Currier & Ives lithograph.

The “Keep Punching” tagline comes from General Patton. His strategy centered on continual, energetic advancement: a belief that “There would be time to rest when the war was over.” For Patton, not only was retreat out of the question, so was even staying in place. “My motto in battle,” he said, “is GO FORWARD!” His ever-onward ethos defeated complacency, cultivated courage, and kept the enemy on its heels. Victory, he declared, goes to those who seize the initiative, push on through setbacks and discouragement, won’t give up the fight, and stay on their feet til the bell rings — the men who “keep punching.”

The tee is made from 100% cotton jersey and available in white or black.

If you’re an AoM reader or listener, pick up a shirt for yourself. If you’ve got one in your life, this is your chance to get him something AoM for Christmas!

Quantities are limited. Once they’re gone, they’re gone — and we don’t know when, or if, AoM merch will be back.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

When people think about living more fully and making better use of their time, they typically think of finding some new organizational system they can structure their lives with.

Oliver Burkeman says that what you really need instead are perspective shifts — small, sustainable changes in how you view and approach your day-to-day life. He provides those mindset shifts in his new book, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts. And we talk about some of them today on the show, including why you should view life’s tasks and problems like a river instead of a bucket, stop feeling guilt over your “productivity debt,” make peace with your decisions by embracing an unconventional reading of the poem “The Road Not Taken,” aim to do your habits “dailyish,” be more welcoming of interruptions, and practice “scruffy hospitality.”

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Mobility is use-it-or-lose-it, and most modern dudes don’t much use it. Your body lets you get away with that in your younger years. By midlife, it shows up as a creaky, stiff body and in tweaks and strains that take a lot longer to heal than they used to.

For most of my 20s and 30s, I didn’t think much about flexibility and mobility. Once I got into my 40s, though, I realized I couldn’t afford to ignore that side of fitness anymore.

After a decade of heavy barbell lifting and nearly two decades of working a desk job, I felt as stiff as a piece of plywood. It sometimes felt like pieces of dry leather were rubbing up against each other beneath my skin. That stiffness caused me problems. I had tight shoulders that I impinged just putting on a backpack and my suit jacket. I had tight hips and hamstrings that I tweaked playing pickup basketball with my kids.

I realized that if I wanted to enjoy the second half of life, I needed to spend some time working on my mobility, not just my bench press and deadlift. Also, if I wanted to keep bench pressing and deadlifting (two things I really enjoy!) into my 50s, then mobility work was going to be essential.

So I went to my physical therapist, Chris Contois, and asked him to help me put together a mobility routine I could do before workouts. Chris is a fellow powerlifter and a middle-aged dude himself, so he understands why this stuff matters. He’s also seen plenty of middle-aged guys show up at his clinic with tweaks that come from a lack of mobility.

Below is the protocol he came up with for me. It’s two mobility programs, with six exercises each that you perform before your lifting workouts. One you can do on upper body days and another you can do on your lower body days. You can also do all twelve of them together in a single session.

Each program will take about 10 minutes. You might be thinking you don’t have time for that, but ask yourself, “Would you rather spend 10 minutes a day doing this little mobility routine or take weeks off from activity to nurse an impinged shoulder or a pulled hammie?” You don’t have the time not to take the time.

To do this program, you’ll need a long loop resistance band, a box or bench, a pull-up bar, and a PVC pipe or broomstick. I’ve linked a video demo for each exercise. Describing them in text is kinda hard.

The Lower Body Mobility Program

Run through these in order. It should take about 10 minutes, maybe a little longer the first few times while you figure out the band setups.

1. Banded Ankle Knee Drives

Stiff ankles can cause you problems in your knees and back. Suppose your ankle can’t bend enough to let your knee travel forward when you squat; your lower back can round to make up the difference. That’s not good.

Reps: 10 per side, pausing for 2 seconds each time your knee is all the way forward.

2. Split Stance Ankle and Knee Mobility With Hip Flexor and Hamstring Stretch

This one strings three stretches together into a single flowing movement.

Reps: 10 per side, holding each position for 2 to 3 seconds.

3. Banded Lateral Hip Distraction With Internal Rotation

Internal rotation is turning your thigh inward in the hip socket, and it’s the hip movement lifters tend to neglect. Without enough of it, the bottom of a squat can feel bad, man.

You can do this on the ground or with your leg up on a box. As you move in and out of the stretch, Chris says to keep your foot and ankle still and let the movement come from your hip. Keep your hips in a neutral position instead of sitting back.

Reps: 10 per side, pausing for 2 seconds at the end of each rep.

4. Banded Hip Distraction With External Rotation

This one works your hip in the opposite direction from the last one. It’s basically pigeon pose with a band.

Chris’s main pointer for this one is to actively drive your hip back toward the band while you pull your body forward and away from it, rather than just sitting there. You’ll feel a deep stretch in your glute and the outside of your hip. Do it with your leg on a box if you don’t have the flexibility to do it on the floor.

Hold: 45 seconds per side.

5. Russian Baby Maker Hamstring Drill

This one might go by another name (you’ll often see it called a squat-to-stand), but whatever you call it, it gives you a good stretch in your hammies. This is one of my favorites.

Reps: 10, pausing for 2 to 3 seconds at the bottom and the top of each.

6. Downward Dog to Upward Dog Flows

If you’ve done any yoga, you know these two poses. Downward dog hits your calves and hamstrings. Upward dog arches your spine back and stretches the front of your hips and chest. A great one to get that spine feeling nice and loose.

Reps: 5 rounds, holding each pose for 3 seconds.

The Upper Body Program

Same as the lower body program. Do them in the order outlined. This one also takes about 10 minutes.

1. Cervical CARs

CARs stands for controlled articular rotations, which is a fancy way of saying you slowly move a joint through the biggest circle it can make. Here, the joint is your neck. If you spend your workday staring at a screen as I do, your neck doesn’t get moved around much.

Reps: 3 slow circles clockwise, then 3 counterclockwise.

2. PVC-Assisted Lat Stretch

Your lats run from your upper arms down to your lower back. When they’re tight, they keep your arms from getting all the way overhead, which can make pressing a barbell, or even putting on a T-shirt, hard to do. Another of my favorites.

Reps: 8 reps, hold for 3 seconds at the bottom.

3. Stick-Assisted Shoulder Internal Rotation and Extension

When you reach back to slip your arm through a backpack strap, your shoulder rotates inward and extends behind you. If your shoulders aren’t mobile, that’s a recipe for an impinged shoulder. Consider this your anti-impinging-your-shoulder-while-putting-on-a-backpack-drill. If you don’t have a stick, you can use a towel.

Reps: 5 per side, holding each one for a full breath.

4. Box- or Bench-Assisted Dead Hang

We’ve talked about the benefits of hanging from a bar. It stretches your lats and gets your shoulders all the way overhead. The dead hang is a great exercise to treat and prevent shoulder impingement. If your grip strength isn’t good yet, you can rest your feet on a box to take off some of the weight.

Hold: 3 hangs of 30 seconds each.

5. Thread the Needle to Sprinkler Stretch

This one gets your upper back rotating. When your upper back is stiff, your lower back ends up having to twist, which can lead to a strained lower back, the bane of every middle-aged man’s existence.

When you’re doing this drill, reach for a spot you can’t quite get to, which Chris says gets you the most out of the stretch.

Reps: 8 per side.

6. Scorpion Pec and Shoulder Stretch

The scorpion is usually a lower body stretch, but this version puts the focus on your chest and the front of your shoulder. If you bench a lot, as I do, you’ll probably feel this one, and it feels good.

Reps: 5 per side, holding the stretch for 2 slow breaths.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

As a boy, one of my favorite times in school was when we’d get a new Scholastic News book “catalog.” I would pore over the pages, picking out which books I wanted and filling out the order sheet. And as soon as I got them, I was lying under the covers with my nose buried in a book.

Unfortunately, not all boys have that kind of enthusiasm for reading. For several decades now, boys have scored lower on reading assessment tests than girls. Boys also take longer to learn to read than girls, are less likely to actually read and to value reading, and are more likely to label themselves as “non-readers” (up to 50% of high school-age boys consider themselves as such). Non-reading boys do poorer academically and end up as non-reading men (women read almost twice as many books as men).

What’s the problem? Some of it may be biological (boys’ language skills develop more slowly than girls). But a lot of it is sociological. Boys may see reading as a passive and thus sissy activity. Boys also lack male reading mentors — their librarians and teachers are often female, and it’s mom who reads to them. And in the name of gender-neutrality, teachers are foisting books on boys that they simply do not like.

But parents are to blame too, often trying to make their sons read “important books” to build their character. Dad loved some long tome as a boy and wants Junior to come to an equal appreciation of it.

But reading experts all agree that boys need to be allowed to pick the books that really interest them. Of course it’s okay to make suggestions to your son about things he might like — boys very much value the opinion of other boys and men in making their reading selections. So here are 50 books that many boys and young men will really love. We’ve included some classics, but we also threw in some more modern and accessible choices; after all, not every boy has the desire or the aptitude to dive into Dickens. The fiction stories capture the imagination and provide valuable life lessons; the non-fiction ones offer primers on handy and fun skills a boy should develop. 

Finally, while we had boys about the ages of 9-15 in mind when we made this list, I’ve always considered the distinction between adult and young adult literature to be an unfortunate and artificial one. Putting together this list, I remembered just how good these books are, and I can’t wait to read them again as a man. Whether you’re 12 or 52, grab one of these books and a bag of cookies and head out to the treehouse.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

Pretty much every boy’s favorite book. When the pilot of the small plane of which he is a passenger crash lands in the Canadian wilderness, 13-year-old Brian Robeson must survive with only his wits and a hatchet. Utterly alone, Brian must learn to rely on himself. Gripping and vividly told, every boy pictures himself in Brian’s shoes and wonders whether he would have what it takes to survive.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Set at a boys’ prep school on the eve of World War II, A Separate Peace centers on the friendship of Phineas and Gene. Phineas’ seeming perfection creates a jealousy in Gene that results in a tragedy that will forever change both of their lives. A piercing look at both the light and the shadows of friendship and humanity. Every boy wishes he were Finny but knows he’s more like Gene. This book has stuck with me ever since reading it as a young man and remains one of my favorites until this day.

Arc of a Scythe Trilogy by Neal Shusterman

In Neal Shusterman’s future, an all-knowing AI called the Thunderhead runs the world, and if you get tired of being old, you can reset your body to your twenties. The specter of death is eliminated, and teenagers jump off buildings for kicks because they’ll just get revived. To keep the population in check, a guild of Scythes decides who gets permanently killed, or “gleaned.” Citra and Rowan are two teens picked to apprentice under a Scythe named Faraday, partly because neither of them wants the job. Then they learn only one of them will become a Scythe, and the winner’s first assignment will be to glean the loser. Shusterman gets boys wrestling with some heavy stuff (if life never ends, what makes it worth anything?) while keeping the pages turning. 

The American Boy’s Handy Book by Daniel C. Beard

Long before The Dangerous Book for Boys became all the rage, there was the American Boy’s Handy Book. Every father and grandfather should have this on his shelf, waiting there for a boy to pull it off and start leafing through. Dozens of awesome (and unlike the other book, some actually dangerous) hands-on projects for boys to tackle, from how to build kites and forts to how to rear wild birds and trap animals. Originally published in 1882 and still a must for every boy today.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

The story of a boy whose boring life is interrupted by the appearance of something strange and unusual that transports him to a magical place. It’s a premise that underlies a myriad of children’s books, but few are as creatively constructed as The Phantom Tollbooth. Young Milo finds a tollbooth in his room, gets in his toy car, and drives into another dimension. Boys will love the strange adventures Milo experiences, while older kids and adults can enjoy the witty satire and clever puns.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

One of the great American novels. Young Huck Finn escapes from his abusive father by taking off on a raft down the Mississippi River. He is joined by Jim, an escaped slave. The two set off on a grand adventure full of close calls and interesting characters. With wit, action, and fun, coupled with an undercurrent of serious themes, Huck Finn is a multi-layered masterpiece for young and old.

The Last Mission by Harry Mazer

The classic tale of the collision of a boy’s idealistic view of war with its ugly reality. Yet the book manages to avoid being a tired cliche. 15-year-old Jack Raab lies his way into the Army Air Force and finds himself flying bombing missions over occupied territory. On his 25th mission, his last mission before being sent home, his plane is shot down, and he is taken prisoner in a German POW camp. A fictional story and an easy read, but historically accurate and realistic in its details. Be sure to check out other books by Harry Mazer; his A Boy at War series is a painless way to teach boys some history.

The First Edition of the Boy Scout Handbook

Whether or not your son has ever been a Scout, he’ll dig this book. Today’s Scout manual is definitely watered down compared to the first edition. The first edition manual is crammed with info on tracking and trapping animals, building shelters from scratch, and sailing. Additionally, it has stories of bravery and adventure that inspire boys to be great men — something today’s manual is sorely lacking.

Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Known as a war book, The Red Badge of Courage is really a coming-of-age story set on the battlefield. Young Henry Fleming leaves his mother to fight for the Union Army. His question of whether or not he’ll have the courage to stand and fight is answered in the negative when he flees from his first skirmish. Fleming resolves to redeem himself during the next battle. A story not only of the tragedy of war, but the struggle to replace pride, weakness, and rationalization with bravery and personal honesty.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

One of my favorite books as a boy — who knew the lives of rabbits could be so engrossing? I’m sure it’s rife with rich symbolism and whatnot to mull over, but it’s one of those books that creates a world so rich and evocative that it’s best to let yourself get totally wrapped up in it instead of constantly searching for deeper meaning. When a prophetic rabbit correctly foretells that their warren will be destroyed, a band of rabbits travel in search of  a new home and encounter dangerous and interesting obstacles along the way. Some authors can’t make human characters as interesting as these rabbits.

The Johnny Dixon Series by John Bellairs

If you’ve got a kid that loves scares, suspense, and mystery, don’t get ’em mediocre schlock like the Goosebumps series. Check out the books of the wholly under-appreciated John Bellairs. In the Johnny Dixon series, Johnny is somewhat of an outcast who finds a friend and mentor in Professor Childermass. Together they investigate dark and spooky mysteries. Bellairs’ writing is thoroughly engaging, his plots rich and his characters endearing. Also check out his two other equally good series featuring Anthony Monday and Lewis Barnavelt.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The essence of boyhood distilled, transcribed, and bound. This classic is packed with humor and wit and filled with episodes familiar to any American — Tom convincing his friends to whitewash the fence, Tom overhearing his own funeral, Tom exploring a cave with Becky. Twain called it a “hymn to boyhood,” and it’s a song that can be sung over and over.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

A fantasy world, talking animals, magic, good and evil…C.S. Lewis packed a treasure trove of interesting themes into his seven-book masterwork. The books tell the story of a group of children’s adventures, travels, and battles in the world of Narnia. While the stories have become known as a Christian allegory, CS Lewis denied writing them with that intention. And they can be enjoyed both by readers looking simply for an engrossing tale and those searching for deeper layers of meaning. The only question is, what order should you read them in?!

Canoeing with the Cree by Eric Sevareid

Before he became a manly anchorman, Eric Sevareid did exactly what every boy dreams of doing: setting out on a wild, unstructured, crazy adventure. After graduating high school, Sevareid and his friend William Port decided to create their own rite of passage and set out on a 2,250-mile canoe trip from central Minnesota to the Hudson Bay. With only an 18-foot canoe, $100, and some bad maps, the boys spent four months racing the oncoming winter and paddling through dangerous rapids, inclement weather, and hungry mosquitoes, barely surviving with their lives. Drawn from the journals they kept, Canoeing with the Cree was published in 1935 and remains a simple, but fantastic travel-adventure book.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

What would you be willing to give up to live in a pain-free world, a world without chaos or disease or war? At what point would the sacrifice become too great to live in such an idyllic state? The Giver describes a world where the community leaders make all the decisions for the people: who to marry, what job to take, even who should live or die. People take pills to suppress their passions. No one can remember a world before these external controls were put in place…except The Giver, who chooses 12-year-old Jonas to be the new Receiver of Memories. When Jonas realizes that the people have given up their freedom, emotions, and humanity in exchange for equality and peace, he is faced with an enormous decision. A truly profound and thought-provoking book.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

What is the truth of human nature? Away from society, freed from the constraints of external authority, how would men, boys, really act? Not too well, according to William Golding. A group of shipwrecked boys must forge a new life on a deserted island as they wait and hope to be rescued. But the pretense of civilization quickly devolves  into savagery. While the boys fear the attack of a beast, it is their inner beasts which will cause their destruction. It’s a dark book, not the kind one delights to pick up and read over and over again. But every boy must read it once.

Heat by Mike Lupica

Knowing that boys love sports, there are children’s authors who churn out one cookie cutter-sports story after another. And then there is Mike Lupica. Lupica gives the kind of vivid play-by-play details that every good sports book needs, while also filling out his characters and their stories off the field with enough interest and realism to make the reader care. Heat’s plot is of the Law & Order ripped from the headlines variety; Cuban-American Michael Arroyo is a star pitcher whose chances of leading his team to the Little League World Series are jeopardized when he is accused of being older than 12. Not only that, but Arroyo’s parents are dead, and he must keep social services from finding out. Sounds schmaltzy, but Lupica manages to keep it topical and relevant without being heavy-handed. If your boy digs it, be sure to check out the myriad of Lupica’s other sports-themed offerings.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Every boy feels the call of the wild. He feels the desire to strike out and be free, and yet he soon learns the rules of society and the consequences of stepping too far out of line. For the rest of his life he will feel the desire to be primal pull against the need to conform. In Jack London’s magnum opus, he explores this idea through the lives of dogs in the Alaskan Klondike. The dogs, like men, must fight to survive and to lead, in a world that is often unkind. London’s manly writing is economical and concise and yet powerful enough to compel you to draw a blanket around yourself to keep out the cold and dark of an Alaskan night.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Take Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, replace the jungle with a graveyard and the animals with ghosts, and you’ve got Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. The book begins with the mention of the murder of a family, but quickly moves on from there and is not a gruesome tale inappropriate for youngsters. The sole survivor of the murder is an 18-month-old baby, who toddles away to a graveyard. Here the cemetery’s ghosts and ghouls adopt the boy, give him a name (“Nobody,” as he’s like nobody else in the graveyard), protect him from the still-on-the-loose killer, and teach him the life lessons that only the dead can know. It takes a graveyard to raise a child, and the cemetery is a great home, but eventually Bod, as they call him, must deal with the world outside of its borders. Spooky, magical, and engrossing, it’s a must for all boys who like ghost stories (so pretty much all boys). 

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Boys love treasure. Boys love pirates. Boys love Treasure Island. Pretty much everything we think of when we think of pirates comes not from the pages of history but from this book: treasure maps with “X” marking the spot, deserted islands, peg legs, parrots, and so on. Stevenson insisted that there be no women in the book besides Jim Hawkins’ mother at the beginning, making the book a testosterone-driven, swashbuckling good time. American novelist Henry James praised it as “perfect as a well-played boy’s game.” I couldn’t agree more.

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

After his parents are killed in a rhinoceros accident, James is sent to live with his wicked aunts. Lonely and unhappy, he happens upon a mysterious man who gives him magical crystals he promises will completely change James’ life. But James accidentally drops the crystals on a peach tree, which slowly begins to grow into a gigantic peach. One day James climbs inside, the peach rolls away from his ordinary life, and he embarks on a grand adventure with seven oversize insects: Centipede, Earthworm, Grasshopper, Glow-worm, Miss Spider, Ladybug, and Silkworm. More humorous and exciting than you even remember; a true classic.

Holes by Louis Sachar

Sent to “Camp Green Lake” for a crime he didn’t commit, Stanley Yelnats finds himself at a juvenile detention facility located in a hot, dry wasteland. Stanley quickly learns the daily routine; get up every day and dig a five foot deep by five foot wide by five foot long hole. The camp’s warden tells the boys that the digging is designed to reform their wayward characters, but Stanley soon discovers that she has some other purpose in mind. With both depth and realism and action and magic, it’s an extraordinarily good page-turner.

The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White

While often overlooked in favor of White’s other classics — Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little — this is my personal favorite, and a great one for boys. A classic story of the relationship between father and son — father and son swans, that is. Louis is a trumpeter swan born without the ability to make a sound. Unable to honk and attract the swan he loves, his father steals a trumpet to give his son a voice. Incredibly grateful, Louis works to repay his father’s debt. Swans don’t seem that manly, but this is a great book about individuality, courage, and overcoming life’s challenges.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

It’s incredible that S.E. Hinton started writing this book when she was 15, but it certainly explains her uncanny ability to capture the angst, alienation, emotion, and immediacy of adolescence. Such pitch-perfect tone has rightly catapulted The Outsiders to classic status. Say “greasers and socs” or “Ponyboy and Soda” or “Stay gold,” and everyone immediately knows what you’re talking about. While every young man will probably be assigned this book in school, it’s a great book to read on your own when you’re not thinking about turning the themes into a term paper.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Should we dare to disturb the universe? Even when the consequences of stepping out of line can be extremely grave? Jerry Renault is an ordinary high school student. The annual fundraiser comes around, where the students are expected to sell chocolates to raise money for the school. The Vigils, a secret society of sorts, that rules both the students and the faculty, assigns students different tasks, simply to belittle them and prove their authority. They require Jerry to refuse to sell chocolates for ten days. Jerry complies with their order, but after the ten days are over, he continues to refuse to sell the chocolates, earning him the ire of the Vigils and the rest of the school. How far would you be willing to stick with your convictions, even when everyone turns against you? Powerfully written but bleak and dark, this book is best for older boys.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

There are books that discuss profound themes, but do so at the expense of plot and character development. And there are page-turners with riveting plots that excite your mind while you read but then leave you empty when you finish. And then there is To Kill a Mockingbird. A literary masterpiece that weaves subtle lessons on racism, tolerance, innocence and guilt, and right and wrong with an engrossing plot and memorable characters. 

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

As a kid, I was a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan. I’d read the strip every day in the paper and buy all the books that came out. Admittedly, a lot of the jokes and content about politics and social issues went over my 9-year-old head, but as a boy I could appreciate Calvin’s enormous imagination where his stuffed tiger pounced on him after school and together they hatched plots and threw snowballs at the annoying girl. It’s been over 30 years since the last Calvin and Hobbes strip was published, so there’s a good chance a young man in your life has never had the opportunity to read such a fine comic. Introduce them today with one of the many Calvin and Hobbes books — I think this one is the best.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Many a man’s love of sci-fi was born in boyhood with the reading of Ender’s Game. In the 22nd century of Earth, the future of mankind is threatened by ant-like aliens called Formics or buggers. Fearing for the survival of the planet, Earth puts its trust in an international military unit called the International Fleet. The IF believes that the earth’s only hope is to train children to become military geniuses. Thus, six-year-old Ender Wiggin is chosen to attend Battle School to be trained to take on the aliens. Being the most intelligent of the geniuses causes the other students to resent him, but despite challenges, Ender quickly emerges as a great leader in the mock battles the children must compete in. But the games have more serious consequences than he realizes. Written in a plain, straightforward manner, many boys will love it, some will hate it, and most will at least be given some food for thought.

Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen

The 11-year-old son of a couple of “puke drunk” parents is sent to live with some distant relatives, the Larsens, on their family farm. Befriended by his 9-year-old and Tom Sawyer-esque second cousin, Harris, the two have a summer of humorous adventures as the narrator gets thrown headfirst into life in the country. Harris’ wild, boyish spirit is infectious and helps the narrator kick off his shoes and the reader to live vicariously through the both of them.

The Odyssey: A Graphic Novel by Gareth Hinds

The Odyssey is a classic every man should read, but it can be challenging, even for an adult. While reading graphic novels sometimes gets criticized as dumbing down reading, any kind of reading is good, and graphic novels can be just the thing to whet a young man’s appetite for meatier fare. This is a particularly good entry in the genre, and takes Homer’s ancient epic and turns it into an accessible narrative that still retains the original’s poetic style. 

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Write a story about the bond between a boy and his dog, and you’re halfway towards a great book. Add good writing, great lessons, and a touching plot, and you’ve got the makings of a perennial favorite. Billy desperately wants a pair of redbone hounds to hunt coons, but his parents can’t afford them. So Billy works hard for two years to save up the money to buy them himself. Together he and Little Ann and Old Dan explore the Ozarks of Oklahoma ever in search of their prize. But where does the red fern come in? According to an old Indian legend, a red fern can only grow where an angel plants it and marks sacred ground. Where does one grow in the story? Why, you’ll have to read it to find out, of course!

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Many a young man has enjoyed being immersed in the tale of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who likes his pipe and his armchair but finds himself pulled onto a grand adventure. Gandalf and 13 dwarves show up at his door and drag him off to help win back their gold from Smaug, a dragon who’s been sleeping on top of it inside the Lonely Mountain. Along the way there are trolls, goblins, giant spiders, and a riddle contest in the dark with a slimy little creature named Gollum. It’s shorter and funnier than The Lord of the Rings, so it’s a natural place to start a boy on Middle-earth. And watching a timid homebody find more nerve than he knew he had is a lesson every young man can use.

The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

Every boy wonders and hopes that his toys secretly come alive when he isn’t watching. For his birthday, Omri gets an old cupboard from his brother and a plastic Indian figurine from his friend. He is unable to unlock the cupboard until his mom gives him a key she has held onto since her childhood. Omri is in for the surprise of his life when he discovers that locking the Indian, and then other figurines in the cabinet brings them to life. His initial excitement is short-lived, however, as he must struggle to keep the secret of the cupboard’s magic, come to the realization that he’s playing god with real people, and decide what to do with his “creations.” It’s the kind of magical, well-written book that will weaken the resistance of even the most reluctant reader.

The Blue Star by Tony Earley

The Blue Star is a sequel to Tony Earley’s Jim the Boy, but this is the better of the books. Many books set in the World War II era, written by authors who never experienced it firsthand, try too hard to recapture the setting by pumping every aspect of the characters’ lives full of drama and importance. But Earley seems to get the tone just right, understanding that life still went on in many of the usual ways, with many of the usual feelings while the storm of war gathered. The story follows a teenage boy in a small town who falls for a girl whose beau has already enlisted in the service. Simple, quiet, excellent.

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

Boy saves horse. Horse saves boy. So begins this classic tale of grand adventure and classic boy/animal bonding. Young Alec Ramsey is shipwrecked with Black, a wild horse, and the two end up stranded on a deserted island. Boy and horse are rescued and brought to the States. A retired horse trainer sees great racing potential in Black if his wildness can be harnessed. Together he and Alec work to turn Black into a thoroughbred, all leading to the race of the century when Black takes on two champions as the proverbial and literal “dark horse.”

The Cay by Theodore Taylor

Journeying back to America from the West Indies in 1942, 11-year-old Phillip is blinded and set adrift when the boat on which he rides is torpedoed by Germans. Phillip ends up on a life raft with Timothy, an old black ship hand, and Stew Cat. Exiled together on a small island, Phillip must deal with his blindness, overcome his prejudice towards his fellow castaway, and learn how to survive and stand on his own two feet. A classic tale of adventure, tolerance, self-reliance, and friendship.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

If your boy has already made it through The Hobbit, he’ll probably want to know what became of the ring Bilbo found in Gollum’s cave. So it’s on to the LOTR trilogy. J.R.R. Tolkien masterfully creates a world where hobbits, dwarves, and elves join together to fight the forces of evil. Loyalty, duty, and bravery are reoccurring themes throughout the three books. And the story’s main protagonist, Frodo Baggins, teaches us that we often don’t choose our calling in life; it chooses us. And when it does, give it all you got.

The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden

The American Boy’s Handy Book for the modern age. Sturdy, well-designed, and tactilely (is that a word?) pleasing, the book contains fun hands-on projects like making secret inks and a bow and arrow, how-to’s on various games like marbles and chess, and interesting boy knowledge about clouds and poems and battles. Of course one criticism of the book is that it seems like nostalgic men buy and read it more than actual boys, but it’s worth a purchase even on the slimmest chance that it will at least momentarily unhook your kid from the tethers of his Xbox.

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

It would seem no platform was less appropriate to tell the tale of the Holocaust than comics, yet somehow the juxtaposition of something we associate with frivolity with one of the gravest periods in history makes the tragedy more powerful and real than any number of more serious tomes on the subject. The Maus graphic novels tell the story of Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz, with Jews drawn as mice and Nazis as cats. Running alongside it is the story of Spiegelman as a grown son trying to get along with his cheap, cantankerous dad in the present day and can resonate for any young man who has a complicated relationship with his father.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Warmer than typical sci-fi, touching on the battle between good and evil without being heavy-handed, A Wrinkle in Time is a unique book that easily won a place in the hearts of kids everywhere. Charles Wallace and Meg Murry are a brother and sister who have special gifts but are written off by others. Together with neighbor Calvin O’Keefe, and aided by three angelic beings, they go in search of their missing father who has been trapped on an alien planet controlled by an evil, disembodied brain. An interesting enough plot to keep a younger boy reading, enough symbolism and allegory to keep an older boy thinking.

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Did you ever try to run away from home? Did you tie a red bandana to a stick, throw in some Oreos, and head down the street? You probably didn’t get very far, but you always wondered what it would have been like to strike out and keep on going. My Side of the Mountain is the story of a boy who not only hears the call of the wild, but heeds it. Who not only hides out in the wilderness, but thrives there. 15-year-old Sam Gribley takes up residence in the hollow of a tree and learns to survive along with a pet falcon. Need I go on? You had me at falconry, My Side of the Mountain, you had me at falconry.

The Hardy Boys Series

Girls have Nancy Drew; boys have the Hardy Boys. Follow brothers Frank and Joe as they investigate the exciting mysteries in Bayport (an amazingly crime-infested town). Although they frequently encounter great dangers, their pluck and, of course, hardihood, allow them to emerge unscathed and solve every case. The series has gone through many iterations, but the ones published between 1927 and 1959, largely written by Leslie McFarlane, are absolutely the best and the only ones worth reading. Beginning in 1959, the books began to be revised in an effort to make them more PC, remove anything too violent, and attract readers with a shorter attention span. The result was sanitized, dumbed-down books that McFarlane considered “gutted.” So buy the vintage books or those from Applewood Books, which has reprinted the original 1-16.

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker

Clive Barker for the younger set. In this engrossing fable, ten-year-old Harvey is bored with his life until a strange being shows him the way to the enchanting and magical Holiday House. Each day cycles through all four seasons, and the children can celebrate Halloween every evening and Christmas every night. It seems like a place of endless fun and excitement, but of course, not everything is as it seems…

The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle

I’m pretty sure every boy goes through a knight phase. Stories of swords, armor, wizards, and dragons are the perfect fuel for a boy’s imagination. And there are few better vehicles to stoke that imagination than Howard Pyle’s rendition of the legendary stories of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. It is surely not the most accessible book; Pyle used the kind of archaic English true to that time, but difficult for ours. But he also wrote it with the young reader in mind, and so a dedicated boy will not find the task of reading and understanding insurmountable, and the book is packed with illustrations to provide visual interest. Of course, also check out Pyle’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, probably the better book (but knights are cooler, so they got the shout out).

Red Rising Series by Pierce Brown

Take Ender’s Game and Lord of the Flies, move them to Mars, and you’ve got Red Rising. Sixteen-year-old Darrow mines helium-3 deep under the planet’s surface, believing his backbreaking work is making Mars livable for future generations. After his wife is hanged for singing a forbidden song, he finds out the surface was made livable centuries ago, and his people, the Reds at the bottom of a color-coded caste system, have been kept underground as slave labor. A band of rebels surgically remakes Darrow into a Gold, the ruling class, so he can infiltrate their academy, where students are split into houses named after Roman gods and turned loose in the wilderness to conquer each other. It’s brutal and hard to put down. Fair warning: it’s a lot bloodier than anything else on this list, so save it for older boys.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Everybody loves Dickens’ Christmas Carol, and everyone is assigned Great Expectations and/or A Tale of Two Cities in high school, and yet poor David Copperfield is often ignored or mistaken for a modern magician. Which is a shame — it is just as good, on some days I might say even better, than his more famous works. And it’s a perfect starting point for a boy who is ready to dip his toes into Dickens. Certainly more challenging than a choose-your-own-adventure book, but quite possibly the thing to change a boy’s mind about “classic” literature. Dickens’ story is a coming-of-age tale that does not make the common mistake of unrealistically having a boy come of age all at once. Instead, we are allowed to experience the great humanity of David Copperfield and the wonderful cast of characters that challenge him, love him, and help him grow into a man.

Heart of a Champion by Carl Deuker

Like Mike Lupica, Carl Deuker manages to mix the kind of pitch-perfect accounts of sports action that is the hallmark of sports literature, with realistic and compelling characters and plot lines. The Heart of a Champion combines baseball with a story about the influence and impact of fathers on their sons, making this another classic entry in that distinctively male genre of stories: baseball as life. Seth’s father died when he was six and his difficulty in coming to terms with his death has set his life adrift. But then he meets Jimmy, who has a father problem all of his own — his dad is overbearing and an alcoholic. Jimmy’s friendship helps Seth get on track with baseball and school, but when his parents divorce, it’s Jimmy whose life starts to fall apart. The boys’ choices soon lead them in very different directions.

Blue Skin of the Sea by Graham Salisbury

Next to Gary Paulsen, Graham Salisbury was one of my favorite authors as a boy. Blue Skin of the Sea is set in Hawaii in the 1950s and 60s and follows the life of a teenager named Sonny Mendoza and his cousin, Keo, as they come of age. Despite coming from a family of a long line of fishermen who braved the ocean for their living, Sonny fears the ocean, but doesn’t know why. At its core, Blue Skin of the Sea is about the self-realization every young man must go through as he makes his way from boyhood to manhood. At least that’s what I got out of it when I read it as a 12-year-old.

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson

Old Yeller is a great book that is often obscured by its cinematic counterpart. But instead of cueing up the film, give your boy the book to read. Often remembered as a story of the bond between a dog and a boy, it’s really a coming-of-age story. 14-year-old Travis Coates lives with his family in the hill country of Texas during the 1860s. When his father must leave home for a time, he leaves Travis to “act a man’s part” and take care of the family. He does his best, but comes to need the help of, and love, Old Yeller, a dog who wanders into their lives. But when Old Yeller gets rabies, Travis learns firsthand one of the most difficult virtues of true manhood — sacrifice.

The Art of Manliness by Brett and Kate McKay

Okay, so I’m a little biased about this one. But I honestly think our book is a must-read for boys and young men. It’s never too early for a boy to start thinking about and learning what it means to be a man. Even if you’re good parents, it’s hard to think of everything a boy needs to know. Help your son learn essential classic skills and manners and become part of the generation that will revive the lost art of manliness.

With our archives now 4,000+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each week to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in October 2009.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Tidal Wave by Adam Makos. We’ve had Adam Makos on the podcast several times to talk about his amazing World War II books, and his newest is another great one. What I love about Makos’ work is that he finds these incredible movie-like stories from WWII you’ve never even heard of. Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of Tidal Wave: In August 1943, American B-24s flew a treetop-level raid on the oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania, the place that kept Hitler’s war machine fueled. One of those bombers got shot down and crash-landed on the estate of Princess Catherine Caradja. The princess took the crew in as “her boys,” kept them out of German hands, and pulled them into a circle of unlikely allies that included Romania’s 21-year-old king and the country’s top fighter ace. The narrative is action-packed, full of intrigue, and just a really fun read. It comes out November 3; order it today, and you can crack it open the day it releases.

Bronson 1963 US Army OG-107 Fatigue Utility Shirt. When I was in high school, I used to wear old military shirts, like the ones from the Vietnam era, that you could find at Army surplus stores. But thanks to the fall of the once-great surplus store, those types of shirts are hard to come by. If you track one down on eBay, it’s really expensive. A company called Bronson Mfg. makes replicas of US military clothing, so I got their version of the 1963 Vietnam shirt, and I’ve been wearing it as an overshirt. I like how it looks. It’s not a field jacket, but it kind of has that field jacket feel. It’s made from heavy 9.5 oz cotton sateen and has the mitered pocket flaps and button cuffs of the ’63 pattern. And at $50, it’s reasonably priced. 

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: It’s Harder to Keep Than to Get and Ex Libris: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Quote of the Week

Choose your intimate friends, your inner circle of pals, from those who are bigger and better and finer in at least certain qualities than you are, so that you may become like them. Every true friend is in a sense a hero to be emulated.

—Frank H. Cheley

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Monsters have plagued our imaginations since the dawn of humanity, and over time we’ve developed some fairly specific ideas about how to deal with them. A wooden stake for a vampire, a silver bullet for a werewolf, a well-aimed blow to a zombie’s head. But where did these rules come from? Some have roots in centuries-old folklore, while others have been popularized by the decisions of authors and depictions in pop culture. 

You never know when the dead might rise, the full moon might bring trouble, or something lurks above in an empty attic. Consider this your field guide to dispatching the supernatural.

Werewolf. The idea of humans transforming into wolves goes back to ancient mythology, but the silver bullet is a more recent convention. European werewolf lore offered various ways to identify or defeat a wolf-man; for example, according to retellings of the story of the Beast of Gévaudan — a wolf-like creature that killed dozens of people in 18th-century France — it was brought down by a hunter using silver bullets. The idea of silver being a werewolf slayer was incorporated into 1941’s The Wolf Man, whose screenwriter, Curt Siodmak, made up much of the werewolf lore we take for granted today.

Vampire. Centuries ago in parts of Eastern Europe, people feared that the dead would return to feed on the blood of the living. Driving wooden stakes into their corpses would prevent them from rising again as vampires. It has become the go-to method for killing Drac in popular vampire stories, with sunlight later added as a method (that rule started with Nosferatu in 1922) and garlic and crosses becoming part of the toolkit for keeping them at bay. The exact rules vary, so it pays to come prepared.

Mummy. Sadly, ancient Egyptians didn’t leave any instructions in their Books of the Dead on how to battle a mummy that has reanimated. But most modern depictions of monster mummies agree that burning them with fire probably works. Those suckers should burn pretty easy since the wrap is dry and resin-covered. Bonus points for using an Indiana Jones torch.

Zombie. While zombies have existed in Haitian mythology for centuries, the zombie as we know it in popular culture originated with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). From that classic horror flick, we learned that destroying the zombie’s brain is the clutch method of dispatching the undead.

Ghost. Ghosts are trickier to deal with because they’re not made from physical matter. An ethereal spirit is a slippery thing; you can’t drive a stake through it or light it on fire or shoot it with a silver bullet. So whaddaya do? In most traditions, the solution to dispatching a ghost is to discover why the dead spirit remains among the living and help it resolve that issue. That might mean addressing an injustice that occurred when the spirit was living or reconciling with a mortal loved one. If you can help the shade find peace, it may finally move on. If that doesn’t work, I think you know who ya gonna call.

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

My guest says that this shift is having consequences, not only for our shrinking individual attention spans, but for society, and Western civilization writ large.

His name is James Marriott, and he’s a columnist at The Times of London and the author of The New Dark Ages: The Death of Reading and the Dawn of the Post-Literate Society. Today on the show, James explains how people thought and interacted before the rise of reading and writing, how literacy changed our minds and made possible everything from democracy to modern science, and how television and smartphones may be returning us in some ways to a preliterate age. We then explore how our increasingly visual culture is making public debate more emotional and influence more personality-driven, and what it might mean for the future.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.