80 Comments
User's avatar
David's avatar

I write literature for clowns. If you or anyone you know identifies as a clown, come on over to my Substack. I promise you won't be disappointed. Gay clowns and straight clowns are welcome.

Expand full comment
Phil Rot's avatar

Thank you for acknowledging this underserved class 🫡 will be checking it out!

Expand full comment
Pablo's avatar

ok, I grew up in the USSR. Apart from regular books, there were 2 very special ones, hard to get, wanted by all. “Desk Book of Future Generals” and “Desk Book of Future Admirals”. Target audience - 8-14 years old boys, cover history of military conflicts starting with Egyptians, modern military technologies, stories about famous warriors and solders, etc. Couldn’t put it down. Read through both 5 or 6 times.

Should be in every home.

Expand full comment
John Jay Stancliff's avatar

I completely agree with almost all of this, but Secret Garden was kino

Expand full comment
Michael Mohr's avatar

Quite funny. I'm 42. I was in high school 1999-2002. It was a private Catholic college-prep school. We did read Dickens and Chaucer and I do recall reading Cather in the Rye...until some irate parents complained and we had to stop reading the damn book. Outside of school I read 1984, Brave New World, etc. I don't recall books assigned in class being particularly female-oriented, but my memory isn't that great. But kids nowadays: First off, most kids today barely even read at all. And what they do read is often filled with ideological bullshit.

Expand full comment
Herman Cillo's avatar

Giving back then there was ideological BS worked into the reading curriculum.

"Red badge of courage" is blatantly anti-war.

Expand full comment
Zachary Harned's avatar

Dude, when you called me a transphobic incel, I lost my mind laughing. What a glorious little essay you have here. I am raising four boys, and I teach at a tiny, private school. I get to pick the books my classes read, and we are about to start The Quest for the Holy Grail. I'll keep your points in mind for next year.

Expand full comment
J. J Williams's avatar

I wrote a cosmic horror short fictional tale (in the vain of Arthur Machen and H.P Lovecraft etc) on my substack, if anyone's interested : https://joewilliams15.substack.com/p/the-cult-of-kambra-by-jjwilliams

Expand full comment
Tia Ja'nae's avatar

Excuse me, I literally released a book late last year that is absolutely, positively fiction for straight men. If they don’t dig gratuitous sex & violence from the male point of view that is uncompromising & unapologetic I can’t help them.

Shameless Plugging:https://www.thegreatbritishbookshop.co.uk/products/flicking-the-bic-1

Expand full comment
Vince Wetzel's avatar

Didn't you read Twain? Catcher? Steinbeck? Hemingway? Shakespeare? Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Fitzgerald? We did, so it was good to read Secret Garden, Little Women, and stories of "black baseball players." I didn't like it at the time, but I see the value of broadening my white boy experience. "To Kill a Mockingbird" rocked me. So did the "Outsiders." Seems like there was plenty to read to me.

Expand full comment
Phil Rot's avatar

Where I went to school, it was 90% minority overcoming adversity stories, and 10% holocaust narratives. We did get Siddhartha in HS though.

Expand full comment
Philip “Big Philly” Smith's avatar

This is excellent.

Expand full comment
Leo Vaughn's avatar

I'm not as witty as you, but we are brothers in this. Here's my take on it. https://leovaughn.substack.com/p/make-masculinity-great-again

Expand full comment
Phil Rot's avatar

I will check it out 🫡

Expand full comment
Stephen B. Anthony's avatar

Gotta say that I appreciate the snark. I invite you to read my treatise on killing off the GRRM title generators.

https://stephenbanthony.substack.com/p/a-curse-of-tropes-and-thirsty-plots

Expand full comment
Phil Rot's avatar

Thanks will do 🫡

Expand full comment
John Pucay's avatar

I keep laughing at your feature image and caption. Great choice.

Expand full comment
Phil Rot's avatar

Thank you 🙏

Expand full comment
Joseph D. Slater's avatar

You're very clever. I hope you don't mind, I might take some notes from your writing.

Expand full comment
Phil Rot's avatar

Thanks 🫡

Expand full comment
Alien_Relay 3.0's avatar

I think its because “rage femmenisn”. Crusaders always go too far. They complain about the patriarchy, but leverage it in a way that as become opposite of equality for all.

Expand full comment
Alien_Relay 3.0's avatar

I do agree that a male dominant structure suppresses rights, but they fail two see 2 issues.

1. Plutocracy, autocracy, oligarchy, class structures, racism all keep the structures intact. If you try weaken one, the others will fill that space.

Trying to leverage a system that has stresses dominance, the effect still will be dominance. Which is why maybe the idea was equality, but it went to far.

Rage solves nothing, it just makes enemies. We're all individuals in the end.

Expand full comment
Ned Murphy's avatar

To be fair, there's too many war vet autobiographies, too. I get it. You went to war blah blah blah. Your life was tough so you channelled your trauma into special forces selection. Copy paste.

Expand full comment
Sean Bohl's avatar

I enjoyed this article. I thought you were funny. Thankfully all my teachers at Trintiy Lutheran School had decent taste in books. I dont remember much that was assigned reading outside of the Bible. But in 3rd Grade my teacher Mrs. Romance read us all the Ralph S Mouse books by Beverly Cleary. I thought damn this mouse has a motorcycle and a sports car. Not as cool as Optimus Prime or Ezekiel raising a zombie army to fight for the Jews but still pretty metal. Later on in like sixth grade the most boring book I had to read was Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. Granted a story about a girl lving alone on an island and surving for 18 years wasnt as riviting as Ehud the left handed assassin in the book of Judges who kills an obese king. While in the process of murde, Ehud ruptures the ruler's bowels and then tells the servants not to bother the king because he was taking a shit. In comparison its hard to measure up to that sort of storytelling. It wasnt till i got to public high school and had to read The grapes of wrath that I was truly bored out of my mind with an assigned book. I really am glad that I dodnt have to read the books you referrence in your article. My mom did read me Stephen Kings Eyes of Dragon when I was in like 7th or 8th grade so that was kinda cool. At that point I was reading books like Heaven Cent by Piers Anthony and Friday by Robert Heinlein. My mom read to me alot growing up but the Stephen King sticks out the most besides when she read me and my sister Psalm 137:9 for the first time.

Expand full comment