On My Radar:

This Might Get a Little Heavy: A Memoir
by Ralphie May with Nils Parker
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

There was a time when Ralphie May was one of the biggest standup comedians in the country, both by ticket sales and by tonnage. While some things changed—Ralphie lost half his body weight—others did not: he will be remembered as one of the most successful comics of his time. Completed just months before his untimely passing, in This Might Get a Little Heavy, Ralphie takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of his life and career, one that winds across the country, over obstacles, beyond heartbreak, and through the golden age of stand-up.

Raised in poor, rural, Arkansas by a single mom who struggled to make ends meet, Ralphie’s early years were the perfect breeding ground for the kind of pain and stress and adversity that only comedy can cure. Bitten by the comedy bug at a Methodist sleep-away camp when he was 12 years old, Ralphie seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity six years later at an open-mic in a pizza parlor. Mentored and inspired by legendary comedian Sam Kinison to move to Houston, where he got his start, Ralphie packed his bags and never looked back. A major headliner for over twenty-five years, in This Might Get A Little Heavy, Ralphie finally tells the world how a chubby poor kid from Clarksville went from Arkansas to Houston to Hollywood and beyond. Full of never before told stories from Ralphie’s life, This Might Get A Little Heavy will bust your gut, pull at your heart strings, and touch your soul.

On My Radar: Friday Edition

Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male Is Not the Man He Used to Be
by Peter McAllister
St. Martin's / Griffin
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Featured in The Wall Street Journal and on ABC’s Nightline, Manthropology is an entertaining and surprising look at manliness.

Anthropologist Peter McAllister set out to prove once and for all that man today is the best man who has ever lived. But to his disappointment, in nearly every category he examined modern man was beaten by his ancestors.

Manthropology, then, is a look at male achievement—and underachievement. It kicks off in Ice Age France, where McAllister proves how a Neanderthal woman could beat even today’s strongest strongman at arm wrestling. He looks at medieval Slavic poets who could take 50 Cent to school in a rap battle. And he takes readers to the jungles of Africa, where Aka Pygmy men have taken fatherhood to such extremes that they even grow breasts to suckle their children.

For the modern man, the results aren’t always pretty. But Manthropology is unfailingly smart and entertaining.

How Does Modern Man Stack Up?

Ultimate Fighters routinely end up on a blood-soaked canvas. But what would a match in the Octagon look like next to the bouts of Ancient Greece: a battleground or a playground? [Page 77]

A modern army goes into battle with state-of-the-art technology. But could they have beaten Nero’s legions, who marched fifty miles a day for six straight days—each soldier carrying a hundred-pound pack? [Page 99]

Wilt Chamberlain is known for scoring on the court and off. He claimed to have had as many as 20,000 sexual encounters. But that’s nothing compared to the 32 million people today all descended from just one conqueror. [Page 248]

On My Radar (Monday Edition)

SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden
by Chuck Pfarrer

St. Martin's Press
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

The true story of the killing of bin Laden by author and former U.S. Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer

On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. a satellite uplink was sent from Pakistan crackling into the situation room of the White House: "Geronimo, Echo, KIA." These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, ended Osama bin Laden’s reign of terror. SEAL Target Geronimo is the story of Neptune's Spear from the men who were there.  After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details in an exclusive account of what happened as he takes readers inside the walls of Bin Laden’s compound penetrating deep into the terrorist’s lair to reach the exact spot where the Al Qaeda leader was cowering when the bullet entered his head. SEAL Target Geronimo is an explosive story of unparalleled valor and clockwork military precision carried out by the most elite fighting force in the world—the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six.

Praise

“Chuck Pfarrer writes with the brilliant eye of a novelist and the real-world authority of a soldier who has fought in the world’s most mysterious corners. He’s not only a poet and soldier, but also a deeply read historian. Pfarrer has written a true page-turner about the inside story of Operation Neptune’s Spear. There is enough action here, enough human drama, enough fascinating history, to keep you reading until dawn—you simply have to know what happens next. SEAL Target Geronimo is first-rate storytelling. It’s an amazing story, written about a world no one knows better than Chuck Pfarrer himself.”--Doug Stanton, author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers

About the Author

Chuck PfarrerChuck Pfarrer is a former assault element commander of SEAL Team Six. He has written op-eds for The New York Times and the Knight Ridder syndicate, and appeared as an author and counterterrorism expert on C-SPAN2, NPR, Alhurra, IPR, Voice of America, Fox News, and America Tonight. Pfarrer serves presently as an associate editor of The Counter Terrorist, the American Journal of Counterterrorism. Pfarrer is the author of the bestseller Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL. His Hollywood credits include writing and producing work for Navy Seals, Darkman, Hard Target, The Jackal, Virus, and Red Planet. He lives in Michigan.