'The Ultimate Guide to Male Enhancement' - AJ Alfaro (2019) *SAMPLE CHAPTERS ONLY*
'The Ultimate Guide to Male Enhancement' - AJ Alfaro (2019) *SAMPLE CHAPTERS ONLY*
Great thread!
There are some free chapters of my book "The Ultimate Guide To Male Enhancement" posted in the Articles section- starting here:
A Summary of the History of Male Enhancement (from The Ultimate Guide To Male Enhancement)
More to come soon!
So I have found (in the PEGym articles section) and read 4 chapters from 'The Ultimate Guide to Male Enhancement' (AJ Alfaro - PEGym's 'Big Al', 2019) and thought I would give my thoughts here, though not a full review as I have not read the whole book.
The chapters I found were:
- Summary of the history of male enhancement
- Layman’s Research on the Forums
- My Story & About the Client Study
- The Importance of Record Keeping
It was not always clear whether these were full chapters or excerpts from them. Some in particular I would've wanted to continue reading more on the same topic.
In general, it is well written, in proper English - it seems ridiculous to have to add this as a comment, but of the PE books I have read so far this is not always a given! One in particular that I haven't reviewed for the book club (yet, I will) reads terribly, both the use of English and the presentation, it's like the author was not confident in their use of English and the book was never proof-read (or the formatting and layout checked) by anyone. Luckily this is not the case with the ultimate guide.
If the sample chapters are indicative of the quality of the rest of the book, I would expect the ultimate guide to be a credible and well presented book. It would need to be to justify its price, which I do find quite high - $28.99 paperback (around £23.82) or $24.99 (£20.53) for the pdf.
It is worth noting that the paperback is listed as being a substantial 331 pages, so it is hopefully a very comprehensive treatment of the topic. While the two books reviewed above were much cheaper, they are also a fraction of the length. They both also used a large font size, a more typical font size would have made them even smaller. Still, you don't usually find that the price of books multiplies up linearly as the book length increases (ie if book A is 3 times as long as book B, you would expect book A to be more expensive than B but not 3 times more).
So, the chapter samples:
- Summary of the history of male enhancement.
I found this really interesting and would have read a lot more information on the historic and cultural variations of PE. I was a little skeptical about seeing Wikipedia cited as a source, but this might be me being old-school, I know most of the time Wikipedia is believed to be about as reliable as many more long-standing sources. The chapter touches on supplements for PE - supplementation could be a big chapter in it's own right (and I hope it is?) - covering what works (for increasing EQ and perhaps giving the illusion of a size increase, and so on) and what doesn't. In this chapter on the history, if supplements are going to be mentioned I found it odd that the famous penis pill type spam emails that everyone in the world has had hundreds of aren't mentioned. They are so well known I would expect a chapter on the history of PE to mention them, even if they aren't a particularly glorious part of the history of PE.
- Layman’s Research on the Forums
This chapter covers the Pseudo scientific method followed by pe trainees; the general form this tends to take and the received wisdom (mixed with Al's own advice). The chapter was interesting but it did seem to move quickly from details of the layman's research into the authors advice. I think some more detail on forum use would've been useful - such as the importance of search functions, the potential bias a newcomer can get from talking to just one or two forum members (who are likely to give advice on what has worked or not worked for them - and making decisions based on a sample size of 1 or 2 is perhaps not wise) and also the sense that together, experienced forum members and newcomers alike are helping to build a body of evidence into PE and what does or doesn't work, best ways to make things work effectively, risks, and so on. If I was to be really pedantic (and it looks like I'm going to be) I noticed some of the language is a little colloquial, with "you'd" and "you'll" being used. In context this doesn't seem like a serious problem and some readers may prefer the informal approach and find it creates a pleasant conversational tone and the sense that the author is a friend sharing his knowledge with you.
- The Importance of Record Keeping chapter provides useful advice. The reasons for record keeping for new PE'ers may be obvious, or they may do it simply because they see other forum members have starting, current (and often goal) measurements in their message signature, but it doesn't hurt to have the reasons for it fully laid out. One thing I did find a little jarring was the mention of the authors MaleEnhancementCoach.com business there in the text - I think that would be better placed just as a mention in an 'about the author' section or conclusion. This book may be being read after the male enhancement coaching is no longer available, in which case, in-text references to it would make the book's content seem out of date and might undermine the reader's confidence in it.
- My Story & About the Client Study
I found this chapter perhaps the most interesting of all (of the ones I found), charting Al's journey from fitness to PE advisor on internet forums and the concurrent rise of modern PE as a field (and business). It adds to the same sense you get from reading about the history of PE that this is an exciting and ever-changing thing we are a part of. It is a field that we ourselves are helping to build the evidence for, and that it is not just some collection of scams and snake-oil salesmen - as many newcomers may fear!
All in all, I enjoyed reading the sample chapters of the book. That the author is a long-standing and trusted moderator and contributor on PEGym serves as reassurance that you are getting information from a credible source. His enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, the subject is clear. As I said earlier I haven't read the whole book so I won't give a numerical score.
