Please show me how!

By megret | October 29, 2008 at 7:07 am | 59 comments | Books & Reading

I don’t even think I held in my hands this particular book the night it arrived on my doorstep for review. We had some friends over that evening, and it was promptly intercepted, opened, and pored over, unbeknown to me. I finally realized I’d better track this book down so I could see for myself what all the hype was about….and when I asked my husband about its whereabouts, he sheepishly responded, “It may be at work. On a coworkers’s desk. Not mine.” Turns out this book had made the rounds throughout his workplace, and it would require a covert operation to get it back into the hands of its rightful owner.

It’s three days later, and I am happy to say that I have the book back in hand. And now I know why this book was such a hot commodity with our fun-loving friends.

This book, Show Me How: 500 Things You Should Know (Instructions for Life From the Everyday to the Exotic), is an absolute riot. It is one part serious, one part ludicrous, and one part absolutely hilarious.

It is purely enjoyable from an art standpoint — the silhouetted people demonstrating various things, the lines and colors simple and uncluttered, just like any how-to manual would demonstrate. (Think the instructional safety signs you see inside an airplane.)

(I snuck a pic of my husband reading the book — he’s totally engrossed with it.)

You name it, this book probably tells you how to do it/make it/pull it off. Want a little sampling of what you’d expect to find within its cover?

There’s practical help for relationships, such as how to:
- Fill my home with romance (#218)
- Sizzle with some salsa moves (#200)
- Flirt with emoticons (#201)

There are helpful household hints, like how to:
- Make classic fried chicken (#92)
- Feed a cat a pill (#297)
- Make the perfect bed (#233)
- De-rust a cast iron pan (#73)

Parenting tips, such as how you might:
- Hang a tire swing (#2)
- Create the ultimate tree house (#260)
- Remove gum from a child’s hair (#309)

A few good medical and health tips, like how to:
- Strike a basic yoga pose (#353)
- Treat a case of frostbite (#442)
- Vanquish a case of hiccups (#474)

Travel tips aren’t excluded either, since they tell you how to:
- Pack a first aid kit (#336)
- Stay limber on an airplane (#373)
- Triumph over seasickness (#394)

And we mustn’t leave out these things, just IN CASE we ever need to know how to:
- Use pants to stay afloat (#448)
- Mold a false fingerprint (#487)
- Apply traditional geisha makeup (#164)

By now, it must be incredibly obvious how difficult this book really is to put down.

Show Me How by Collins Design will be hit the shelves this week and will retail for $24.95.

How would you like to win one? HarperCollins is giving TWO of you a chance to win a copy of Show Me How. All you have to do is leave me one comment telling me something you hope this book teaches you how to do. I’ll close the contest at 11pm EST next Friday, November 7th, 2008, and announce the two winners the next day. U.S. entries only. Good luck!