Man-brary, a man's library, suggestions?

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Brian.Evans

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I've had an idea bouncing around my head for a long time, and I've finally put my foot down and told my wife that I WILL be making our mud room into a mild man cave, to include a man-brary, a man's library that a guy could find information on all sorts of guy things.

Basically, I want it to be like this; if tomorrow there were no grandfathers, no fathers, no Internet, how would a guy learn how to do anything? What would happen if there was no way of learning dependent on technology as we know it? Answer: the man-brary.

I'm wanting suggestions in all genres. Practical, woods survival, home improvement, civic, reference, religious. All I'm looking for is a repository of information. It's more a hobby than incredibly practical, but I guess it could be practical some day. I love collecting information.

Here is some of my current collection. I have some more books, mostly medical references, but I need a different shelving system to appropriately display them. My wish list/next to find and purchase include a machinist handbook, in depth flower, tree, and animal guides, books on canning and food preservation, gardening, the Foxfire series, and anything to do with utility type stuff such as steam, electricity generation, or water treatment.

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What would your suggestions be? I'm interested to hear if any of you all have done this or something like it as well.
 
SAS Survival Handbook by John 'Lofty' Wiseman
BEER by Charles Bamforth
Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills (8th edition)
Any applicable 4WD Trail books for the area
Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas
Wildwood Wisdom by Ellsworth Jaeger and Lloyd Kahn

I'm a fan of the man-brary too, although mine is not well separated from my novel collection (anything by Hemingway is quite manly, as is The River of Doubt by Candice Millard, which is a historical account of Theodore Roosevelt and Candido Rondon's exploration of a river in the Amazon).
 
Wildwood wisdom was one of the books that started it all when I was a kid. That book went a lot of miles with me back and forth to and through the woods. It got pretty beat up, then my toddler son preceded to attempt to destroy it further. I need to duct tape it. Lol. It's the grey covered book right in the middle if the shelf. Keep the ideas coming. Very good suggestions sir!
 
Foxfire series. My mother actually turned me on to these. Everything a man needs to know. From cabin building to distillery set ups.

And 'joy of cooking'.
 
lilBIGfoot said:
Foxfire series. My mother actually turned me on to these. Everything a man needs to know. From cabin building to distillery set ups.

And 'joy of cooking'.
Click to expand...

Haha. I love those. They are first on the list to buy soon. I loved the still making section as a kid. I don't know why exactly, but I sure thought it was cool.
 
We are men. It's embedded in our DNA. Lol.

Something else that will be useful are any number of craft books. I have an encyclopedia of 'child craft' books with a lot of 'how it works' type of chapters. Read when I was a child and didn't realize how much I learnt from them until I got them out to show my daughter the other day. Lots of knot tying amongst other valuable information.
 
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I'm seething. I just got chastised on another forum for calling it a manbrary. It annoys me that our society is failing in recognizing that men and women are indeed different and it's not bad.
 
Must have been a jeep forum. Lol. Some people need to get over themselves. Men and women are different. It's just how the world is.

I dont sit down when I pee, scream when I see a spider, or cry if I hit my thumb with a hammer.

I love women and I respect them, but I also respect u wanting to build ur manbrary.
 
lilBIGfoot said:
Foxfire series. My mother actually turned me on to these. Everything a man needs to know. From cabin building to distillery set ups.

And 'joy of cooking'.
Click to expand...

Yes, definitely. I started getting my copies in the 1970s.

The first book in the series --- The Foxfire Book: Hog Dressing, Log Cabin Building, Mountain Crafts and Foods, Planting by the Signs, Snake Lore, Hunting Tales, Faith Healing, Moonshining, and Other Affairs of Plain Living
 
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A Farewell to Arms
All Quiet on the Western Front
Animal Farm
The Art of War
The Bible, both testaments
Call of the Wild
Captains Courageous
Davy Crockett
The Defence Of Duffer's Drift
For Whom the Bells Toll
The Grapes of Wrath
The Hobbit
The Journals of Lewis and Clark
Man-Eaters of Tsavo
Moby Dick
Paths of Glory
The Poetry of Robert Frost
The Red Badge of Courage
Slaughter House Five
Stirling's Desert Raiders
A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
Twelve O'clock High
To Kill a Mockingbird
Walden
 
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Back to Basics is a must have. As is the bible. I also like Audobon Field Guides and the standard fare of bushcrafting/wilderness living/survival books that make the rounds. I am blessed to have married a librarian. I have quite the collection of old library books taken out of circulation or the odd old donated book I was able to snatch before it hit the used table, etc. I am running out of space!
 
The pocket ref fourth edition, great little book, pocket sized, 900 pages, and a little of everything. some very useful and obscure information, for instance, it has a table showing how fast someone was going based on the length of their skid mark, and the condition of the road.

As for a story to read, the walking drum by Louis L'amour is a fun one. :)

Whoops, just realized it's already on your shelf. :o
 
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medicevans said:
I'm seething. I just got chastised on another forum for calling it a manbrary. It annoys me that our society is failing in recognizing that men and women are indeed different and it's not bad.
Click to expand...

Respond with a link to the scientific article "His Brain, Her Brain" by Larry Cahill. It was published in Scientific American: Current Issues in Biology. I'm not saying that 99% of gender roles isn't socially contrived, but there is evidence supporting neurological differences and innate interests in 'manly' things. Apparently even male monkey babies prefer toy trucks and female monkey babies prefer dolls. I'm not trying to discount women who are into 'manly' things though--research like this just makes women who are into such things that much more special. And for the record, I am more scared of spiders than my last girlfriend. I'm still not comfortable smashing them with my bare hand.

OK, I'm not trying to turn this into a gender debate. Just wanted to post something scientific about the topic. Let's see some more non-fiction recommendations!

How about relevant automotive repair manuals?
 
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