Why am I passionate about this?

Michael Kimmel is one of the world’s leading experts on men and masculinities. He was the SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University. Among his many books are Manhood in America, Angry White Men, The Politics of Manhood, The Gendered Society, and the best seller Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. With funding from the MacArthur Foundation, he founded the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Stony Brook in 2013.


I wrote

Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men

By Michael Kimmel,

Book cover of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men

What is my book about?

The passage from adolescence to adulthood was once clear. Today, growing up has become more complex and confusing, as young…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of China Boy

Michael Kimmel Why did I love this book?

Lee depicts the world of San Francisco through the eyes of a young Chinese-American boy, navigating the grownup world of race, class, and urban life, and trying to find the place where he fits, in between his family and ethnicity, and his modern American sensibility.  Also worth noting, Kai-Ting’s encounters with African-Americans, Chicanos and other Chinese people, in a novel that has nary a white person in it. 

By Gus Lee,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked China Boy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"What a knockout. An incredibly rich and new voice for American literature...China Boy grabs the reader's heart and won't let go."-Amy Tan, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club

"A fascinating, evocative portrait of the Chinese community in California in the 1950s, caught between two complex, demanding cultures."-The New York Times Book Review

Kai Ting is the only American-born son of a Shanghai family that fled China during Mao's revolution. Growing up in a San Francisco multicultural, low-income neighborhood, Kai is caught between two worlds-embracing neither the Chinese nor the American way of life. After his mother's death, Kai is…


Book cover of Affliction

Michael Kimmel Why did I love this book?

I’ve rarely read a book that explores the pain of the white working class better.  If you’ve ever wondered about the lives of those grizzled gas station attendants with their faded baseball hats, this book is a small masterpiece.

By Russell Banks,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Affliction as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The story of the descent into violence of ordinary man. The narrator looks at the struggle between decency and brutality in his brother, whose early promise as an athlete and student was crushed by his father's fists. By the author of "Continental Drift".


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Book cover of The Romanov Heiress

The Romanov Heiress by Jennifer Laam,

Four sisters in hiding. A grand duchess in disguise. Dark family secrets revealed. An alternate future for the Romanovs from Jennifer Laam, author of The Secret Daughter Of The Tsar.

With her parents and brother missing and presumed dead, former Grand Duchess Olga Romanova must keep her younger sisters…

Book cover of Recent History

Michael Kimmel Why did I love this book?

The novel has a remarkable twist on the traditional coming of age story; it’s also a novel about a straight guy coming to terms with his own homophobia.  It’s not a novel about a gay boy, but more a novel about a sraight boy’s understanding of how deeply homophobia has infected his life. 

By Anthony Giardina,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Recent History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The new novel from an acclaimed short story writer - a brilliantly observed portrait of a man teetering on the edge of abandoning his marriage for a homosexual affair

As a husband, Luca Carcera hides his emotions behind the safety of routine domesticity. With his spice jars and cookbooks stacked perfectly in the kitchen, he feels in some measure of control. He loves his wife, but is struggling to come to terms with the secret desires which lie beneath his role as a steady, suburban, middle-class husband. His parents, Lou and Dorothy, spent 14 years together before Lou abandoned his…


Book cover of Death of a Salesman

Michael Kimmel Why did I love this book?

This play has so many layers: men’s relationship to work, marriage, fatherhood, unrealized ambitions, and the costs of buying your own bullshit.  See it with Dustin Hoffman or Philip Seymour Hoffman.

By Arthur Miller,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Death of a Salesman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Pulitzer Prize-winning tragedy of a salesman's deferred American dream

Ever since it was first performed in 1949, Death of a Salesman has been recognized as a milestone of the American theater. In the person of Willy Loman, the aging, failing salesman who makes his living riding on a smile and a shoeshine, Arthur Miller redefined the tragic hero as a man whose dreams are at once insupportably vast and dangerously insubstantial. He has given us a figure whose name has become a symbol for a kind of majestic grandiosity-and a play that compresses epic extremes of humor and anguish,…


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Book cover of Drawn from Life

Drawn from Life by Sarah P. Blanchard,

A life-changing tragedy. Conflicting memories. Is she a killer or a victim? Drawn From Life tells the story of a young woman driven to seek the truth about her traumatic past. As she sifts through the real and not-real landscapes of memory, she must re-examine her own agency in the…

Book cover of Moby-Dick

Michael Kimmel Why did I love this book?

Moby Dick looks at the world of men from the perspective of a young initiate – like Nick Carroway and dozens of other youthful entrants to manhood. The book revels in the casual intimacy and homosocial bonding among men in the workplace, exposes the catastrophic dangers of hubris, and provides a multi-layered dissection of racial hierarchy.  A work of literature generally hailed as the great American novel that has precisely two female characters (both servants).  What does that say about us?  A question worth thinking about.  Oh, and such a great story, with a description so thick you can practically smell the whale oil. 

By Herman Melville,

Why should I read it?

27 authors picked Moby-Dick as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Melville's tale of the whaling industry, and one captain's obsession with revenge against the Great White Whale that took his leg. Classics Illustrated tells this wonderful tale in colourful comic strip form, offering an excellent introduction for younger readers. This edition also includes a biography of Herman Melville and study questions, which can be used both in the classroom or at home to further engage the reader in the work at hand.


Explore my book 😀

Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men

By Michael Kimmel,

Book cover of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men

What is my book about?

The passage from adolescence to adulthood was once clear. Today, growing up has become more complex and confusing, as young men drift casually through college and beyond—hanging out, partying, playing with tech toys, watching sports. But beneath the appearance of a simple extended boyhood, a more dangerous social world has developed, far away from the traditional signposts and cultural signals that once helped boys navigate their way to manhood—a territory Michael Kimmel has identified as "Guyland."


In mapping the troubling social world where men are now made, Kimmel offers a view into the minds and times of America's sons, brothers, and boyfriends, and he works toward redefining what it means to be a man today—and tomorrow. Only by understanding this world and this life stage can we enable young men to chart their own paths, stay true to themselves, and emerge safely from Guyland as responsible and fully formed male adults.


Book cover of China Boy
Book cover of Affliction
Book cover of Recent History

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