The Modern Lover: A Playbook for Suitors, Spouses & Ringless Carousers

Men's Health columnists Mollod and Tesauro want to raise the word ""lover"" to a broad respectability that connotes all the steps of the male-female relationship, from courtship through marriage and even fatherhood. This ""twenty-something whistle-stop tour of amorous experiences"" is thus a complement to their previous book, The Modern Gentleman. Despite the gentlemanly pretense, though, things aren't off-puttingly proper. The authors believe in wild oats and are full of advice for sowing them: comparing women to wines, for instance, they suggest trying ""the mellowness of experience"" as well as the ""exuberance of youth,"" and the pleasures of oral sex are not neglected. The writing is generally a bit heavy on food metaphors--lots of tenderloin, dry fruit and even Campbell's soup (the quickie, which is highly recommended)--and rather too dense with metaphor in general. Furthermore, the sex tips can be more atmospheric than technically explicit. But young bachelors in search of mores rather than morals will find some playful and even sound advice here. A warning to women who want to peek: this book is definitely for men only: you may not like finding yourself referred to as a ""between-meal snack"" (no matter how ""tasty"") or stereotyped as the ""flamboyant butterfly"" or the ""firestarter.""