We had a lot of cool stuff happen in October. The biggest news was the launch of our new book, The Art of Manliness: Classic Skills and Manners for the Modern Man. A big thanks to everyone who has gone out and bought a copy (or 2 or 3…. or even 7! Thanks John T.). We really appreciate it. With the holidays coming up, consider picking up a few copies of our book for the men in your life. It would make a great stocking stuffer.

Speaking of holidays, we also released A Man’s Guide to the Holidays eBook. It’s crammed with tips guaranteed to give you the manliest holiday season ever. Learn how to tip like a gentleman around the holidays, hang Christmas lights efficiently, and cut down a Christmas tree.

October’s Most Popular Posts

How to Exit a Room Like a Man

How to Shave Like Your Great Grandpa: The Ultimate Straight Razor Shaving Guide

How to Speed Read Like Theodore Roosevelt

The Mad Men Guide to a Manly Haircut

On Manly Loyalty

The Community

The blog isn’t the only part of the Art of Manliness site. If you’d like to connect with other men who are interested in rediscovering the lost art of manliness, make sure to join the Community. We have over 5,000 registered members from all over the world. In the Community, you can share manly pics, write a blog post about a manly skill, or take part in one of the hundreds of discussions going on.

Movember

The Art of Manliness formed a team to participate in Movember. Movember is a month long campaign where men grow mustaches and raise money to help battle prostate cancer and depression. The AoM team has 82 member from all over the world. If you’re not a member of the AoM Movember posse, please consider donating a few dollars to the AoM team. Your money will be going to an important cause for men.

Art of Manliness T-shirts

Show off your Art of Manliness pride with one of our 6 manly t-shirts from TankFarm Clothing. Also, makes a great Christmas present!

Subscribe

You can subscribe to The Art of Manliness by the following methods:

Join over 24,000 people who receive The Art of Manliness via email by supplying your address.

Enter your email address:

Make sure you confirm your email subscription by answering the confirmation email you get after signing up.

You can also subscribe through RSS.

Every subscriber gets access to our popular Guide to Being a Gentleman eBook.

Be sure to follow Art of Manliness on Twitter. Each day we provide inspiring manly quotes and cool man trivia.

• The Best of Art of Manliness: August 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2009
• The Art of Manliness: Best of July 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: June 2009
• Weekly Link Round-Up: October 31, 2009

Every time I turn on a football game, I see players with pink shoelaces and pink gloves and pink towels, all promoting breast cancer awareness. I’m all for saving the world’s wonderful tata’s, but men have a cancer all of their own, and it unfortunately doesn’t get quite as much attention (I guess nobody wants to think about a guy’s junk when they’re peeling off the top of their yogurt.)

But Movember is an effort to change that. Started in 2003, Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the mustache, highlighting men’s health issues – specifically prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and male depression. During the month of November, men grow a mustache and raise funds for charities like the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LIVESTRONG).

We’re going to be celebrating Movember here on the Art of Manliness website by inviting readers to grow a mo during the month of November. The man who raises the most money for charity will be rewarded with a handsome prize.

Here’s how the contest works:

1. Awesomely manly Aussie and Movember veteran Shaun Daws has started an Art of Manliness team on the Movember site. As team captain, he’ll be keeping an eye on the leader board and encouraging you along. To join the Art of Manliness team, you must register on the Movember site. You must register as a “team member” so we can keep track of your progress.

2. On November 1, you must start out clean shaven. You will then commence the growing of your beautiful, hairy mustache masterpiece. You cannot shave your mo until Nov. 30, and you must adhere to the following grooming rules:

• There is to be no joining of the Mo at the sideburns – that’s a beard

• There is to be no joining of the handlebars at the chin – that’s a goatee

• A small complimentary growth under the chin is allowed (aka the Tickler)

3. During the month, hit up friends and family to donate to the cause.

4. Shaun has created a Movember Group in the Art of Manliness Community. Join the group and encourage your brothers! Shaun will be posting news, pictures, and updates, and you should do likewise. Let everyone see how your stache is progressing!

5. If you don’t have the cajones to grow a mustache (or if you don’t have cajones, period) you can still donate to the cause.

Men, this is your big chance to grow the mustache you’ve always dreamed of having but been too scared to attempt. The beauty of Movember is that during the early growing stage, the stage where the newly formed mustache’s appearance is so unsightly that men give up and shave, you have a ready and worthy excuse for why you look like a child molester. People will not only abstain from laughing at you, men will pat you on the back and women will french kiss you with joy. Then, at the end of the month, when the awesomeness of your stache is in full bloom, people will be in such awe of it that they will beg you not to shave it off. It’s win-win here folks.

Speaking of winning, finally having the manly mustache of your dreams is not the only prize. The Art of Manliness team members who raise the most money will be richly rewarded for the effort with these super duper prizes:

3rd Place: A sweet Movember t-shirt.

2nd Place: A sweet Movember t-shirt PLUS mustache cuff links.

1st Place: A Box of Manliness….A what? Behold!

This box was designed and created by AoM read Danielle Gidley for her boyfriend’s 30th birthday. We thought it was so cool that we’re going to make one for the winner of the Movember contest. The box will contain:

• Safety Razor
• Taylor of Old Bond Street Sandalwood Shaving Cream
• Badger Hair Shaving Brush
• Manly Mustache Handkerchief
• Case Pocket Knife
• A signed copy of the Art of Manliness book

This box will not only put hair on your chest, it will add serious fur to your now trembling upper lip. Happy growing fellas!

• The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup: Man Store Edition
• Best of Art of Manliness: October 2009
• 20 Manliest Mustaches and Beards From Facial Hair History
• Weekly Link Round-Up: October 31, 2009
• The Art of Manliness Weekly Round-up: November 7, 2009

First off, a big thanks to everyone who has already bought a copy of the new Art of Manliness book. Thanks to you all, last Monday we made it up to #33 on Amazon.com’s Bestseller list. We really and truly appreciate the support. We’ve gotten a lot of very positive feedback about the book, and we’re happy that you’re enjoying it and have found it to be a good read.

Here are some updates about the book we wanted to let you know about:

Free Man’s Guide to the Holidays Ebook Offer Ends Soon!

If you haven’t bought a book yet, remember that you only have about 24 hours left to get the our new ebook, Man’s Guide to the Holidays, FREE with the purchase of the Art of Manliness book. The Man’s Guide to the Holidays ebook will sell for $9.95, so this is your chance to get two books for the price of one! The offer ends on Monday, October 12 at 11:59. So make sure to buy your book before the witching hour. If you’re planning on buying Art of Manliness books as gifts for the holidays, go ahead and buy them now and get the free ebook. You can stash the books in the attic.

Amazon Reviews

If you’ve already received the book and you’re grateful for the amount of hair it’s put on your chest, please consider posting a review of the book on Amazon.

• Announcing the Launch of the Art of Manliness Book!
• Best of Art of Manliness: October 2009
• The Art of Manliness Free Man Cookbook
• Get the 30 Days to a Better Man eBook!
• Ebook Link Fixed

Well it’s been over a year in the making and Kate and I are proud to announce to launch of the Art of Manliness book!

Why an Art of Manliness Book?

I’ll level with you, there are a ton of “man skill” books out there. But while they offer advice on how to make  a potato gun and get a stripper’s phone number, they don’t point the way towards becoming a better man. And there are also books out there about the philosophy of manliness. But they don’t offer any practical advice for putting those theories into practice. What hasn’t been available is a book that combines both fun and substance. A book that provides plenty of “how-to” tips, while situated in the context of becoming the best man you can be. Until now.

If you enjoy the Art of Manliness website, you can now have some of our best advice all in one place, in one comprehensive, nicely formatted, handsomely illustrated whole. The Art of Manliness book is also fantastic for the husband, brother, boyfriend, or son that you’ve been trying to turn on to the website. The book is perfect for both boys and men who want to better themselves.

About the Art of Manliness Book

We’ve made an About page just for the book where you can  look around, learn more about the book, and even read a whole chapter from the book. Check it out.

Buy the Art of Manliness Book-Get Our New Ebook, the “Man’s Guide to the Holidays,” for FREE

In honor of this first week of the book launch, we are offering an awesome, unbeatable deal. We’ve just completed a new ebook: Man’s Guide to the Holidays. There are plenty of holiday guides out there for women, but until now there’s never been anything specifically written for men. The ebook will teach you all the skills a man needs to know to make the holidays a magical and festive time. The book is priced at $9.95, but until Monday, October 12th, if you buy a copy of the Art of Manliness book, you can get the Man’s Guide to the Holidays absolutely free. Two books for the price of one! See this page for details.

Support the Art of Manliness Book Launch

We can’t afford a fancy publicist to get the word out about the book, so we’re relying on the Art of Manliness army to trumpet the book far and wide. We’d love to really put manliness on the map! Right now the media seems to ignore the fact that there are men and women out there who are tired of men simply being presented and marketed to as dumb brutes. Let’s get people talking about this emerging movement towards honorable manliness!

Here are some ways you can help us get the word out about the book:

• Buy the book on Amazon on Monday, October 5. If you’re planning on buying the book, buy it on Monday. We’d like to get as high on Amazon’s bestseller list on Monday as humanely possible, which can generate some additional exposure for the book.
• If you liked the book, please post a review on Amazon and let other people know.
• Tweet the Art of Manliness book page to your friends.
• Put an overlay of the book in your Twitter avatar.
• Share a link to the Art of Manliness book page on Facebook.
• Ask your local bookstores if they are carrying the book.
• If you have a blog, blog about the book.

• Important Updates About the Art of Manliness Book
• Best of Art of Manliness: October 2009
• The Art of Manliness Free Man Cookbook
• Get the 30 Days to a Better Man eBook!
• Best of Art of Manliness: September 2009

I can’t believe summer is almost over. It went by fast. Thankfully, for the first time in 21 years I won’t be going back to school this fall. It feels sort of weird. Anyway, August was a great month at the Art of Manliness. Lots of great comments in the posts and lots of manly activity in the Community. Thanks again for all your help in making the Art of Manliness a success.

Here are the top 5 most popular posts in August:

13 (More) of the Worst Products For Men

Brewing the Perfect Cup of Coffee

Being Decisive

How to Apologize Like a Man

Old School Workout: Daily Exercises for Young Men from 1883

The Community

The blog isn’t the only part of the Art of Manliness site. If you’d like to connect with other men who are interested in rediscovering the lost art of manliness, make sure to join the Community. We have over 4,200 registered members from all over the world. In the Community, you can share manly pics, write a blog post about a manly skill, or take part in one of the hundreds of discussions going on.

Art of Manliness T-shirts

Show off your Art of Manliness pride with one of our 6 manly t-shirts from TankFarm Clothing.

The 30 Days E-book

If you missed our 30 Days to a Better Man program back in June, you can download it in a nicely formatted PDF eBook for only $2.50. The book is over 90 pages long and crammed with tips and motivation to help you become a better man in just a month. Click here to download it.

Subscribe

You can subscribe to The Art of Manliness by the following methods:

Join over 20,000 people who receive The Art of Manliness via email by supplying your address.

Enter your email address:

Make sure you confirm your email subscription by answering the confirmation email you get after signing up.

You can also subscribe through RSS.

Every subscriber gets access to our popular Guide to Being a Gentleman eBook.

Be sure to follow Art of Manliness on Twitter. Each day we provide inspiring manly quotes and cool man trivia.

Share

Art of Manliness is a completely bootstrapped operation. If you appreciate the quality, free content we put out, please share AoM with other people. Use the share button at the bottom of every post to share AoM articles on popular social media sites, email stories you like to your friends, or just bring us up in your daily conversations. And join the new Evangelists of Manliness group in the Community to learn about more ways to help. We appreciate the love.

• The Art of Manliness: Best of July 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: June 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2009
• Best of Art of Manliness: October 2009
• Best of Art of Manliness: September 2009

This past June, The Art of Manliness ran a month long series called 30 Days to a Better Man. We got a very positive response from it and many of you told us that you found it very helpful. After the series was over, we received many requests from readers to put the series together in an a easy to read and formatted PDF eBook that they could print off and go through at their own speed.

Well, I finally it got it done. I spent a lot of time working on this bad boy, but I think the effort was well worth it. It looks nice and I’ve added some spiffy worksheets at the end of each task that you can use to help you make your progress on becoming a better man. This turned out to be the size of a regular book. It’s a little over 90 pages long. Because it’s PDF, you can print more than one book page on a printer page. You can put two to a page and create a small book. If you really want to save paper, put three to a page.

Here’s a preview of what it looks like:

Mantastic! How can I get it? If you’d like to download the book, click on this link. You’ll be taken to a PayPal page, where you can securely pay a nominal cost of $2.50 and download the file.

Why are you charging for the eBook? The cost is to cover the time I spent putting this bad boy together. I kept the price nominal because 1) I wanted everybody to afford it if they wanted it and 2) the content is already available online.

Can you still access the posts online for free? You betcha. You can still go through all the Better Men posts online for absolutely free. They’re not going anywhere. The draw of the eBook is the convenience of being able to print it off and take it with you and the worksheets I added.

Again, if you’d like download the eBook, click here and pay $2.50 via Paypal. Paypal accepts credit cards.

• The Art of Manliness Free Man Cookbook
• Important Updates About the Art of Manliness Book
• Art of Manliness Weekly Round-Up: 30 Days to a Better Man Ebook Edition
• The Best of Art of Manliness: August 2009
• Ebook Link Fixed

Last month was a big one for Art of Manliness. We started off the month with the redesign of the site. Thanks for all of your fantastic feedback on it. We also launched our new line of t-shirts and hosted another epic Saddleback Leather Company giveaway. Once again, the contest really drew a crowd. Thanks for your participation!

We ended the month with over 700,000 visits and the subscriber count reached 44,000. Thank you for continuing to spread the word about AoM. We couldn’t be successful without your help.

Let’s take a look at July’s most popular posts:

100 Must See Movies: The Men’s Essential Movie Library

The Best Guns For Home Defense

Command a Room Like a Man

Motivational Posters: George S. Patton Edition

A Man’s Guide to Summer Dress

The Community

The blog isn’t the only part of the Art of Manliness site. If you’d like to connect with other men who are interested in rediscovering the lost art of manliness, make sure to join the Community. We have over 3,700 registered members from all over the world. In the Community, you can share manly pics, write a blog post about a manly skill, or take part in one of the hundreds of discussions going on.

Subscribe

You can subscribe to The Art of Manliness by the following methods:

Join over 19,000 people who receive The Art of Manliness via email by supplying your address.

Enter your email address:

Make sure you confirm your email subscription by answering the confirmation email you get after signing up.

You can also subscribe through RSS.

Every subscriber gets access to our popular Guide to Being a Gentleman eBook.

Be sure to follow Art of Manliness on Twitter. Each day we provide inspiring manly quotes and cool man trivia.

Share

Art of Manliness is a completely bootstrapped operation. If you appreciate the quality, free content we put out, please share AoM with other people. Use the share button at the bottom of every post to share AoM articles on popular social media sites, email stories you like to your friends, or just bring us up in your daily conversations. We appreciate any help you can provide.

• The Best of Art of Manliness: June 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: August 2009
• Best of Art of Manliness: October 2009
• Best of Art of Manliness: September 2009

We were blown away by the response to the Saddleback Leather Company Briefcase Giveaway. 1,218 of you left comments sharing your briefcase essentials, over 900 joined the Man Bag Group in the Community, and thousands of you sent emails to your friends. Thanks for your impassioned response. If we could give a Saddleback briefcase to all of you (and myself!), we would.

But of course, there can only be one winner. And the lucky man who was randomly selected from the entries was Seth Putnam of Carthage, Missouri. Seth is a journalist who spends a lot of time in South America. His new Saddleback Leather briefcase is the perfect accessory to carry his notebooks and camera into the field. Congratulations Seth!

If you didn’t win the contest, you’re still not walking away empty handed. The folks at Saddleback Leather Company are offering Art of Manliness readers an exclusive offer.  Any reader who makes a Saddleback purchase of $245 or more will receive a FREE small Saddleback Leather wallet. These wallets are made with the same quality materials and craftsmanship as the bags and will last a lifetime. To get your free wallet, add the wallet to your shopping cart along with your other purchases and enter in the code “aom” when you check out. The cost of the wallet will be taken off your total price. The code is good until August 9, so make sure you snap up a bag today!

• Congratulations to Saddleback Leather Company Man Bag Giveaway Winner
• Saddleback Leather Company Man Bag Giveaway
• Briefcase Essentials: The Saddleback Leather Company Giveaway
• Art of Manliness Weekly Link Roundup: Cake and Mates of State Edition
• The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup

Well we’ve upped the design on the Art of Manliness website and we thought it was time to up the coolness of our t-shirts as well. We’ve teamed up with the awesome men at Tankfarm Clothing to create a new line of AoM shirts. Not only are the designs uber manly, the t-shirts themselves are of the highest quality, baby soft, and fit nicely to your manly physique.

There are 5 new designs to choose from. The first 3 are odes to the greatest and manliest man of all time, Theodore Roosevelt:

The Bull Moose Party

Concerned about the direction the country was going in, in 1912 TR ran for an unprecedented third term as President. When it became clear that the Republican party bosses were not going to nominate him, he bolted the convention and formed the Progressive Party, otherwise known as the Bull Moose Party. Show your support for the greatest third party in American history with this awesome tee.

Rough Rider

Before TR was prez, he led a special regiment of the country’s best frontiersmen, cowboys, marksmen and all-around bad asses to glory in the Spanish-American War. The manliest military force in history, they were known as the Rough Riders.

Strong as a Bull Moose

The Progressive Party got its nickname when reporters questioned whether TR was fit for office and he retorted, “I’m as fit as a bull moose!” Later during the campaign, Roosevelt was shot by a would-be assassin. The bullet lodged in his ribs, but instead of seeking immediate medical attention he proceeded to an auditorium where thousands were waiting to hear him speak. He showed them his bloody shirt and declared: “I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to stop a Bull Moose!” He then proceeded to speak for 90 minutes before finally consenting to be taken to the hospital.

For those less, well, obsessed with Theodore Roosevelt, we offer two just generally awesome and manly designs:

Gentlemen’s Boxing Club

Okay, so we still found a way to sneak a little TR into this one. What can I say; we can’t help ourselves.

Razor Sharp

Barbershops are some of the very last bastions of manliness. Convince your friends to forever forsake Supercuts by wearing this shirt.

All the tees are $16.50 and can be ordered from the Tankfarm/Art of Manliness store. If you don’t have the scratch to buy one, don’t forget that you can obtain a shirt the good old fashioned way: by earning one. Participte in the Art of Manliness Community, accumulate manliness 1,000 points, and you’ve got yourself a shirt. Of course if you can wait more than a day to get one of these babies, then brother, you’re a better man than me.

Many, many thanks to the manly men of Tankfarm tees for putting these shirts and the AoM store together for us. You are outstanding men and we are proud to be associated with you.

DownloadThe Art of Manliness Free Man Cookbook
DownloadThe Art of Manliness Guide to Being a Gentleman

Hawaiiabera Discount Code: AOM


Check Out These Related Posts:

• Preorder a New Art of Manliness T-Shirt
• Best of Art of Manliness: October 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2009
• Lessons in Manliness: Theodore Roosevelt and the Spanish-American War
• Preorder an Art of Manliness T-Shirt

So this week was AoM’s very first with our new facelift. I think the Art of Manliness is looking pretty dang sharp. We’ve been tweaking little issues this week. If you encounter any problems, please let us know. Some of you have mentioned that you have to complete a “captcha” to leave a comment. This shouldn’t be happening, so if it is, again, let us know. Otherwise, just bask in the newly upped manliness of the design.

Now let’s take a look at other things that have been happening around the blog this week:

Art of Manliness Contests

The Toilet Paper Contest

The Toilet Paper randomly drew an email from those who signed up for their updates, and the winner of a new Amazon Kindle is……

Marshall McClure from North Carolina

Hope you enjoy that Kindle, Marshall!

AoM Community PhotoGroup Photo Contest

The PhotoGroup hosted a father-themed photo contest last month and the excellent entries have been narrowed down to 4 superb finalists. The winner is selected by popular vote, and voting ends today, so stop by and pick your favorite. And take a minute to watch this great video of all the entries that was put together by the huhman:

Around the Community This Week

Within the Book Group, the Book Club has decided to read The Count of Monte Cristo. You have two weeks to read it and then they’ll discuss it. Join in!

Will started a discussion about books about manliness and lists some of his recommendations.

Todd started a discussion about manly names. You can’t go wrong with Optimus Prime.

If you want kids and you spouse decides that they don’t, is that a deal breaker? Weigh in on this weighty topic.

Craig posted a heartwarming story about his Fourth of July with his family.

Tyler posed the question, “What man most personifies the Art of Manliness? A great question in itself, but it also spawned another question: Is it ever manly to kill yourself?

Todd started a discussion about how to decorate a man’s apartment.

Liam started a discussion about having a positive attitude about aging.

James wrote an excellent blog post about the difference between passion and posturing.

In the Motorcycles Group, Claude posed the question, “If money were no object, what bike would you add to your collection and why?

In the Philosopher’s Group, Christatos Aristad grapples with the economy of life and whether it’s moral to kill some people in order to save others.

In that same group, Shaun posed his usual thought-provoking questions like:

Is it wrong to choose not to have children?

When does the Boy become the Man?

Is it right to “promote” the spread of democracy?

• Announcing the Art of Manliness Father’s Day Photo Contest
• The Weekly Round-Up
• Weekly Link Round-Up
• Weekly Link Round-up: Week 4 of the 30 Days to a Better Man Challenge
• Weekly Link Round: Week 3 of 30 Days to a Better Man

If you subscribe to the Art of Manliness through RSS feed or by email updates, you may have noticed that you haven’t seen anything new from AoM in about a week. No, we haven’t stopped blogging; perish the thought! This past weekend we’ve been doing some updates on the server and on the site’s design. During the update, we had a small glitch that caused our RSS feed and email newsletters not to update. We apologize for the inconvenience.Things should be back to normal again.

While you weren’t getting updates, a lot was going on at The Art of Manliness. To help catch you up, here’s what you missed:

Welcome to The Art of Manliness Redesign (Come visit the site! It has been completely redesigned.)

Motivational Posters: George S. Patton Edition

More Than Just Finding North: Understanding the Compass

• Best of Art of Manliness, March 2008
• The Art of Manliness: Best of July 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness, April 2008
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2009
• Father’s Day Giveaway! $25 Gift Certificate to Outback Steakhouse

I’m sure many of you noticed that The Art of Manliness was down for maintenance this weekend. In between scarfing down burgers and watching fireworks, we were busy rolling out the redesign of the site. Welcome to AoM 2.o.

I’ve been wanting to redesign the site for awhile now. When I first started AoM back in 2008, I did the design myself. I thought it was pretty good for a law student who had a few months of HTML under his belt, but I knew it could have been better. So I decided to call in long time AoM reader and bad-a web designer, Eric Granata to help me give Art of Manliness a facelift. Eric did a fantastic job. He’s a talented and smart designer who had the ethos and feel of Art of Manliness down pat and was able to deliver us a redesign that knocked our socks off. If you’re looking for a graphic/web designer, definitely check out Eric. I wholeheartedly recommend him. Thanks, Eric!

So, what’s new?  Here’s a quick rundown:

• Simplified layout. We tried to make things simpler and cleaner looking.  We got rid of the magazine style layout and replaced it with a simple chronological layout like you see on most blogs. At the top we put a featured post rotator where we can put some of our favorite posts front and center. Underneath that you’ll find a list of posts in chronological order. Much easier on the eyes, if I do say so myself. We’ve also moved to just one sidebar column instead of two to further clean up the design.
• Better Navigation. We’ve done some things to improve navigation on the site. At the top we’ve added a nav bar with all our main categories. If you’re just interested in a particular subject, just click on a corresponding link at the top and enjoy the archives from that category. We’ve also included a tab box in the sidebar where you can easily see our most popular and most recent articles. Finally, on each individual post, we’ve included links at the bottom that  easily let you navigate to the previous or next post and also related posts.
• Vintage design. Art of Manliness is known for it’s old timey manliness vibe. We upped it a bit with some nice visual flourishes like the manly wood paneling on the sides and top and the cool vintage engravings in the sidebar.
• Barbershop Locator and Community Buttons. We wanted to make our famous Barbershop locator easier to find, so we had Eric whip up a cool looking button for the sidebar. Also, he made a nice looking button for our manly community section on the site. Just one click and you’re interacting with thousands of men who are interested in manning up.
• Featured Video. We’ve been doing more how-to videos, and we wanted a place where readers could have easy access to them, so we made a featured video square in the sidebar. Anytime we put out a new video, look for it there.
• Gravatars in the comments. These were added to give more of a community feel to the comments.  Basically, it’s just a little photo or picture next to each comment. You can go to Gravatar.com to sign up for a free account (you just give them your email, not anything personal) and add a simple photo. You don’t have to sign up for a Gravatar in order to leave a comment. If you leave a comment without a gravatar, a default John Sullivan icon will be left.

For those of you who blog, we’re now using the Thesis Wordpress Theme. Check it out. Very easy to use and customize and it’s great for SEO.

That’s pretty much it. We’ll be tweaking stuff over the next few days and adding some finishing touches. Let us know what you think!

• Check Out the Art of Manliness on ChannelFlip
• The Best of Art of Manliness: March 2009
• Art of Manliness Housekeeping: RSS Feed and Email Updates Fixed
• The Art of Manliness: Best of July 2009
• Introducing The Art of Manliness Barbershop Locator

Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the United States and we’re going to take a break so we can celebrate with friends and family. We hope you have a wonderful and safe 4th of July weekend. Here are some patriotic themed posts from AoM that you can read while taking a break from chowing down on burgers and dogs.

The Ultimate Man’s Guide to Fireworks

Is Patriotism Manly?

How to Fly Old Glory With Respect

The Art of Summer Grilling

How to Grill the Perfect Steak

On Being Given Much

• Happy 4th of July 2008
• The Art of Summer Grilling
• Happy Thanksgiving!
• Grilling the Perfect Steak
• The Art of Manliness Weekly Roundup: Men’s Grill Edition

June was a fantastic month for The Art of Manliness. The 30 Days to a Better Man Challenge was a big success. We had over 600 people sign up for the official Community group. Thanks to everyone who participated! Keep your eyes open for the 30 Days to a Better Man eBook.  Also, traffic reached an all time high of 600,000 visits and our subscriber count reached 39,000. Thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word about AoM. We don’t have an advertising budget, so any growth we have is because readers like you are telling your friends about us.

July is going to be an exciting month for AoM. We’ve got some killer content lined up, we’ll be launching a kick-a line of new AoM t-shirts designed by the good folks at TankFarm, and we’ll be giving the site a face lift so it loads faster and is more user friendly. Stay tuned!

Let’s take a look at June’s most popular posts.

5 Classic Cocktails Every Man Should Know

How to Tie a Tie

15 Manly Smells

The Essential Man’s Adventure Library: Fiction Edition

7 Basic Knots Every Man Should Know

The Gentleman’s Guide to Umbrellas

The Community

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• The Art of Manliness: Best of July 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: May 2009
• The Best of Art of Manliness: August 2009
• Best of Art of Manliness: October 2009
• Best of Art of Manliness: September 2009

Art of Manliness Contests

The first thing I’d like to bring to your attention is the fact that we have a couple of contests that have been running during this month that are ending June 30. So if you’ve been meaning to enter them, don’t delay!

• Do you have a great photo of you as a dad or someone else being a dad? Submit it to the Father-themed photo contest that the Communiuty PhotoGroup is running. The winner gets a Hawaiiabera shirt.

• Sign up for the Toilet Paper’s daily newsletter and you could win an Amazon Kindle.

The 30 Days to a Better Man Challenge

We’re now in the final stretch of the 30 Days to a Better Man Project! There are but 3 tasks left to complete. Don’t give up now; finish strong. Remember, what really counts is how we play in the fourth quarter when we’re all tuckered out.

Here’s a rundown of what we worked on this week:

Day 21: Write Your Own Eulogy. It’s always good to confront your mortality from time to time. The realization that you will one day be six feet under should motivate you to seize the day! What do you hope people say about you at your funeral? Let us know in the Community.

Day 22: Improve Your Posture. Parents and teachers didn’t tell you to stand up straight just to bug you. Proper posture nets you several real benefits, including improved focus, health, and confidence. So stop slouching and tell us about how great it feels to sit up straight in the Community.

Day 23: Learn a Manual Skill. Being handy and learning a craft gives you a sense of satisfaction that cannot be duplicated or imitated. So pick a manual skill you’ve always wanted to learn and go to it. Let us know what you’ve chosen to learn in the Community.

Day 24: Play! All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and a dull man. Play is essential part of a healthy and satisfying life. Tell us how you played this week in the Community.

Day 25: Start a Debt Reduction Plan. Debt is enslaving and keeps a man from becoming totally independent and self-reliant. Don’t just ignore it and pretend like it’s not there; start attacking that ugly debt today. Tell us how you’re going to go about slaying your debt in the Community.

Day 26: Take the Marine Corps Fitness Challenge. It’s one thing to gauge our fitness in our minds, and another entirely to put your bodies to the test. By taking the Marines Corps Fitness Challenge, you’ll get a needed gut check and some solid motivation to get in better shape. Take the test and post your results in the Community.

Day 27: Start a Book. It’s DEAR time! Drop Everything and Read. It’s time to turn off the tube, step away from the computer, and dive into a good book. Let us know what you’re reading in the Community.

Around the Community This Week

Padraic started a discussion about the most recent politician to be caught having an affair, Mark Sanford. Padraic is annoyed with the number of prominent men who have lately fallen from grace, but Joseph says that what happens in the bedroom isn’t as important as the kind of job a man does. What say ye?

Todd started a discussion of what constitutes a manly work ethic and how to develop one.

Christopher, who makes hand-bound moleskine-esque notebooks, has posted a picture of a sample of his work.

Brian posed this question, “What’s your favorite cologne?”

Well, Stephen Farrar needed some advice about what to expect from West Point, and this week, kpeckham is seeking some tips from those who attended the Air Force Academy.

Cristatos posted a blog post about his adventures in India and his quest to track down a masterful hunter of man-eating tigers.

Rich Kauffman posted a great essay about why he performs service.

In the Philosophers Group, Shaun Daws posed his usual interesting questions, like:

Is there honor in war?

Is hunting for sport an ethical pursuit?

Weigh in on a discussion Jacob started in the Beer Appreciation Society: What is your favorite of the cheap stuff?

Speaking of beer, Adam asked his fellow home brewers what they’ve been brewing lately.

• 30 Days to a Better Man Wrap-Up
• Weekly Link Round-Up: September 19, 2009
• Art of Manliness Weekly Link Roundup: 10 Year Reunion Edition
• Weekly Link Round-Up
• Weekly Link Round: Week 3 of 30 Days to a Better Man