Nonfiction Review: The White Man's Guide to White Male Writers ... is a novelty, a book no one needs but is amusing, silly, and entertaining. This mild and gently humorous take will raise a few chuckles without ruffling many feathers. Most of the smiles will come at the expense of the humorless, such as those earnest young men who keep telling me I must read Cormac McCarthy (I will! I will!), all in the guise of being written by one of said young men. The target audience for these satirical pieces seems to be those comfortably within their contemporary, politically correct and ironic social media bubble who can happily poke fun at these hapless writers and their acolytes. Most of the information presented in The White Man's Guide to White Male ... is general knowledge, but there was some interesting trivia ("Cormac" is not McCarthy's given name). Dana Schwartz seems most upset by how many wives some of these writers have had, but I'm not sure why she expected the wives to put up with these men for long. It's a short book, well padded with illustrations and cocktail recipes, which can be read in a sitting or even while standing in a book shop. A good gift for that right, literate person in your life. Fun, but not a necessary part of your personal library. In fairness, this book could've been much more pointed about cultural views and attitudes. But then it wouldn't be funny. [3★]
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