Nine Ridiculous How-To Books

Here at Gunaxin we are relatively familiar with how-to books. We have all spent days in the local library browsing through the Idiot’s Guide to Being Funny and the Moron’s Guide to Hot Girls. Basically, if a book has some combination of the words “guide” and “idiot,” “dummy” or “complete moron” in its title we probably glanced through it, and although some saved our lives (thank you Idiot’s Guide to Punching a Shark) a lot of them left us scarred (we hate you Illustrated Guide to BBW). In what follows we would like to present to you some of the later ones, the self-help books that will do anything but help you, books like these:

1) How to Be Pope

What to Do and Where to Go Once You’re in the Vatican

If you need to learn how to be the Pope in 15 minutes

How many times have you found yourself waking up after a crazy night of partying to realize you’re the new Pope? Apparently it happens often enough that there is a need for a practical how-to book addressing exactly this scenario.

Then again how hard could it be?

Checking out the book’s Amazon page we find out that this book is not a tourist guide, but exactly what it promises: a source of info on crucial stuff like “Why do you need to choose a papal name? What is your official job title?” and the very important “Who does your laundry?” The book even tells you how to do the Papal wave and teaches you basic Latin so you can fake your way through church services.

We know this is a good book because the first review on Amazon is from the author who says “I found it a bloody good read.” We assume he was stoned or drunk the entire time he wrote the book and only read it months latter.

2) The Joy of Solo Sex

We’ll just let the Amazon description speak for itself:

“More than one hundred stories and testimonies from men who enjoy sharing the most intimate details of their solo sex lives with appreciative readers. “

Yes, this is a book filled with over 100 stories about dudes jacking it. A subject fascinating enough that it needed a sequel, titled: More Joy:An Advanced Guide to Solo Sex.

We would like to make some more jokes, but we’re too deeply disturbed that the book had enough sales to make a sequel a good idea. Are there really that many men who need detailed instructions on…you know what we don’t care anymore, let’s just move on.

Picture of the author

3) How to Pee Standing Up

Tips for Hip Chicks

Great guide on how to look like you came from the ’20s

It turns out this book is not a very creepy guide focused on a peculiar pee fetish. In fact, according to Amazon, the book is supposedly a rather sexist guide on how to be the girl from Legally Blond.

Here is the first sentence of the book:

“So there you are, swinging through life buying a teensy bauble here, an itty-bitty new purse there, and occasionally taking that hottie down the hall to a nice little din-din to cheer him up after a lousy audition.”

That sentence pushed the women equality movement back by 20 years, at least. The book goes on to give such awesome advice like:

  • Lie to the cop if you’ve been drinking
  • Sneak to better seats during a theater intermission
  • Buy tickets online so you can get the child’s price
  • Buy clothes, wear once, and return them

Girl, prison will make you look sooo sexy!

4) Anybody Can Be Cool

But Awesome Takes Practice

Boy, does that guy look like a douche or what?

This book is what happens when Christianity and coolness mash in one juicy, advice filled non-fiction novel, teaching you how “to stand up to the constant lies from Satan”. The book contains “Thirteen weeks of challenging and inspiring readings encourage young people to apply the power of their faith and value in Christ to the issues facing them at school, at work, with friends and family.”

The best review from the book’s Amazon page is as follows:

“For years, I struggled with meager coolness until I read this book. Now with my new-found knowledge and my “I am awesome” shirt, all the ladies want to get with me. It may look like they’re just laughing and pointing, but I know that they truly find me irresistible. Since I’ve modeled my hair and clothes from the book cover, everyone thinks I’m Zack from Saved by the Bell. It just doesn’t get anymore awesome than that. Oh yeah.”

5) Is God In Your Bedroom?

Discovering the Joy of Sanctified Sexuality

Is that God? Nope, just Jesus’s giant hand. Keep looking

This multi-volume masterpiece asks the question we have all wondered since the dawn of time: Does God peek at people having sex?

This book answers that dilemma with a strong YES , God is very interested in what you do in bed. In fact he he wants you to exactly what he likes to watch, kinda like a porn director. Here is what the Amazon product description has to say: “Is God In Your Bedroom? is a startling plunge into the Word of God, revealing plain instruction from the Bible concerning God’s creative expression of the gift of sexuality.”

Only by following the clear instructions in this book will your sex have “the mark of God” (that is an actual quote from the book intro). Based on this book we are declaring God a Peeping Tom and hope to see him in court.

God is creepy

Pictured: God according to this book

6) How to write a how to write book

Wait a second…if this is a book on how to write a…

I see what you did there

The sad part about the book is that not only does Amazon not have a product description for the book, but there are no user reviews and no one on the internet seems to have heard of this book before. We assume that is because the book contains the truth to how Chuck Norris can go back in time and become his own father, alternately anyone who ever read this book might have had their head explode due to a time/space dislocation.We’ll let you know when our copy arrives from Amazon.

7) Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life

A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life

YOU, yes you. Shut up!

Finally a book written by our school bully, this uplifting manual contains instructions on how to stop punching yourself and why that wedgie will make you stronger in the long run.

Ha ha, you’re lifestyle will lead to higher risk of heart disease.

All jokes aside this book has a good message: You’re fat and no one loves you, fat-ass! Even more, if you’re the kind of person who needs to be insulted by a book in order to get a few minutes of exercise, well fatty Mcfat, you’re probably not getting in shape in this lifetime. The fact that you might have some health problems because of genes or previous disease doesn’t matter it’s all your fault that people mistake you for a whale and the author of this book doesn’t give a crap. In fact he doesn’t even care that a lot of the info in his book is false or half-true, he’s a jerk and he hates you. Now buy his book and read how much he wants to punch you.

8) How to manage your DICK

Redirect Sexual Energy and Discover Your More Spiritually Enlightened, Evolved Self

Some words lend themselves to becoming acronyms, others are forced into it by the addition of nonsensical words like Cyber Kinetics. Unfortunately the title is the best part as we learn from this Amazon product review:

“It is bold, it’s brazen, it’s provocative. And that is just the title.” — Publishers’ Weekly

You can tell someone over at Publisher’s Weekly owed the author a favor, but decided to take the easy way and only review the title. At least it’s better than the other product review, which focuses on a general statement:

“Sexuality is the home plate of the human soul.” — Howard Bloom, author of the Lucifer Principle

That would be the equivalent of reviewing The Complete Works of Shakespeare by saying:

“We like hamburgers” — Gunaxin.com

“Captions are like sport references”– SomeAuthor Quoted out of Context

9) How to make Love

A Timeless Classic

We’d like to say that this 1930’s pamphlet was meant as a joke, but the Amazon product page tells us it was very serious business back in it’s glory days. Thank God we’ve all evolved and now we don’t need creepy instructions that sound like an Ikea manual: insert part A in part B as shown in fig 1.2

…ah…nevermind we’re still there

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose. — Steven Wright