Over the past thirty years, the institution of manhood – largely unchanged since time immemorial – has been reinvented, rediscovered and remade, almost beyond recognition.

At the same time, the age-old challenges of a man's life – the physical dangers; the thankless duties; the trenchant, incommunicable loneliness and guilt; the unspeakable, sometimes unstoppable physicality of male desire; the preference for convincing action over persuasive words – remain as mysterious and unmapped as ever.

Until now.

In What I Meant To Say, writer and broadcaster Ian Brown has gathered 25 beautifully crafted and thoroughly readable essays by some of Canada's most interesting male voices – pieces of writing that explore, reveal and explain the terrain of manhood, both new and old. Contributions include:

• Greg Hollingshead on brains over brawn
• Brian Johnson on hernias
• Russell Wangersky on heroes
• David Macfarlane on erections
• David Eddie on adultery
• Andrew Pyper on getting married
• Max Fawcett on guys and balls
• Russell Smith on the appeal of the imperfect woman
• Ian Brown on looking, and being looked at, and lying
• Ray Robertson on men's love of guns
• Bert Archer on preferring men over women
• Michael Redhill on mothers, and their varieties
• Additional topics include money, sports, divorce, cars, single parenthood, vanity, death, shopping, hobbies, sisters, solitude, New Age men, naked women, and that perennial favourite – the male fear of commitment.

Deeply insightful and always entertaining, What I Meant To Say reveals the secret thoughts and rituals of men, manhood and masculinity as they have never been revealed before. Both a post-feminist tome and a book that refuses to take orders from anyone, What I Meant To Say is a lively, thoughtful and often touching guide to the deep underbrush of guydom. Isn't it time they explained themselves?

IAN BROWN is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. He is the author of Man Overboard:True Adventures with North American Men, and Freewheeling, which won a National Business Book Award. Brown's reporting and writing have garnered five gold National Magazine Awards and two National Newspaper Awards. He is a contributor to This American Life on U.S. public radio, and the host of both the CBC's Talking Books and Canada's pre-eminent documentary television series, Human Edge and The View from Here. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.

Source: http://www.thomas-allen.com/ThomasAllenPublishers/catalogue/0-88762-190-2.htm