Boom! This is Books & Biceps #307!

Welcome to our hundreds of new readers and a special shout out to everyone who upgraded to a Premium Flex Membership this week! If an awesome B&B reader shared this with you, add your e-mail with the subscribe button below:

If you’re a new subscriber or missed my yearly book round-up, The 15 Most Memorable Books I Read in 2023, you can read it here. 

I hope you all had a great 4th of July. I hit up the Red Sox/Marlins game on Wednesday night down in Miami with my dad, brother, son and nephews. Nice 70% crowd for the Sox and my son had 3 dogs. Proud and grossed out at the same time haha. Yesterday was a classic 4th: pool, hoops, grilling, fireworks. All good!

I’m excited for today’s issue because I get to introduce our new AWESOME TITLE SPONSOR: SFH: Stronger. Faster. Healthier.

One reason I’m so pumped to share this with you is because this sponsorship started with one of our new Books & Biceps readers, Joe, who works for SFH.

(NOTE: So many of our sponsors come from our fellow readers and this means so much to me personally. It means we’re building something solid. A community people want to be part of and support with their brands. Love it.)

After subscribing, Joe got a feel for what our sophisticated meathead crew is all about and he sent me some samples of SFH’s product to check out.

As longtime readers know, I spent over a decade writing for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, GQ and more. I had a zillion supplements and protein powders thrown my way over the years and l developed a strong criteria for what makes top notch, premium supplements without all the garbage. I learned what was BS and what wasn’t; what was made-up marketing speak and what actually matters.

When it comes to SFH, they nailed all the important things I look for:

1. NSF Certified for Sport

2. No proprietary nonsense

3. No soy, gluten or artificial sweeteners

4. Great taste (my favorite flavor is Churro)

5. The whey protein is from grass-fed, free range cattle

And finally, since I’m a sucker for a good story, the brand is family-owned and run by a father-daughter combo in Maine. Very cool.

And now for the best part.

Every Books & Biceps reader gets 15% OFF INSTANTLY using the code word “BICEPS” in the store. My ask right now is to please VISIT THE SFH SITE to get to know them. Every click and order supports this newsletter.

🚨AND THERE’S ALSO A GRAND PRIZE:

If you read this newsletter most weeks and you’ve been thinking of joining Premium Flex, now’s the time!

Everyone who upgrades with an annual membership IS ENTERED TO WIN 2 FREE MONTHS OF THE PROTEIN POWDER OF YOUR CHOICE!

That means you can join our Members-Only Community (the camaraderie & daily posts on Teams by members and friendships being formed is amazing), take part in our Big Read of the Month & Fitness Challenge and then fuel up with two months of protein on SFH!

All you have to do is UPGRADE TO A PREMIUM FLEX MEMBERSHIP and you’re automatically entered to win. NOTE: There will be only one (1) winner.

BOOKS

Jaws by Peter Benchley

For those of you who aren’t Premium Flex Members, I originally had a different book planned for our Big Read of the Month for July but everyone in the community had such a good time with Rambo that we called an audible and instead we’re making this summer the… wait for it… you ready???….

THE SUMMER OF BLOCKBUSTER BOOKS!

The theme for what members are going to read together in June/July/August is going to be summer blockbuster movies that were based on books (that many people didn’t know were books first or never read because the movie was so huge it overshadowed the book itself).

Jaws by Peter Benchley is a book I’ve wanted to read for a long time and we took a quick poll in the Community and everyone was down…

Also, I did some research for us about Benchley and Jaws and learned some cool stuff.

First, did you know that before writing one of the biggest summer novels of all time Peter Benchley was a speechwriter for President Lyndon Johnson? No? I didn’t either.

He’d had the idea for writing the book that would become Jaws for years before actually sitting down to write it once LBJ left office. And the idea didn’t just pop into his head randomly. It came to him after reading a story about a two-ton great white shark caught off the coast of Long Island.

(NOTE: I feel this. I wanted to write Macho Man for so long before my publishing/career stars aligned to make it a possibility.)

One of my favorite things I uncovered were the scrapped titles for Jaws, which was a last-minute decision. Here are two of the titles Benchley ditched:

Leviathan Rising

The Stillness in the Water

Neither of these are as good as Jaws, but ‘Leviathan’ isn’t bad.

The book went through too many rewrites to count, with notes in the beginning that it was too comedic, too dense, too slow and more. But after 18 months, Benchley had his final draft.

For a frame of reference, Benchley only made $7,500 for the manuscript (in 1971)… but then in 1974 he was paid $575,000 for the paperback rights after the book sold 5.5 million copies!

Can’t wait to read this. You can grab your copy here.

👉 You’re Invited: Premium Flex Members will be reading Jaws together as our Big Read of the Month, with cool discussion about the book, movie and other awesome action novels in the B&B Community chat group. We’re in the middle of our Summer Blockbuster Reads theme and you’ll love it. You can join with this link.

BICEPS

Most mornings the music I blast in the Flex Factory is about 25% WWE entrance music (Randy Orton’s ‘Voices’, Batista, Cody Rhodes, Cena and more), 50% 90s rap and 25% random hard rock songs or music from a playlist that my son adds songs to so I don’t completely lose touch with new artists.

Lately, he’s been adding more and more songs from one artist: a rapper by the name of Luke Gawne.

Luke had a breakout hit with ‘Chaos’ earlier this year and you may have seen his video with Shaquille O’Neil here. This is an excellent garage gym song:

But to me Gawne’s best is the one he came out with last week called Iron. It’s a UFC walkout song and I have to say, it’s an instant gym classic. Hits all the right motivational notes and pumps you up as the beat speeds up. Give it a listen:

QUICK FLEXES

Got a lot of fun responses from my Power Bar post last week. I think this will bring back some similar memories:

And if you’re hankering for a regular dose of 80s & 90s nostalgia and want to listen to a trio of funny dudes chop it up about everything from wrestling to movies to Hot Pockets and pop culture, you should 100% check out Be Kind Let’s Rewind!

I got to hang out with these guys and talk about Macho Man and we’ve become buds. I’m confident that once you listen for a few minutes you’ll feel like you’re back in your college dorm room again having the best kind of conversations and arguments and ball busting. LISTEN HERE.

If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to ghostwrite a book for a guy worth a half-billion, here’s some of my notes:

Time to Honor Our Meathead Agreement

In the gym there is an unspoken agreement that if a fellow dude needs a spot you jump in and help, one meathead to another.

If you enjoy reading this newsletter every week, let’s spot each other.

Let’s consider my writing and sending each issue of Books & Biceps my spotting you the best books, interviews and meathead content around.

Your spot to me is that you share this issue with ONE person who you think would like it.

That’s the deal. I spot you. You spot me. Just like the gym. Thanks!

Here’s your personal sharing link to get free stuff for every share:

STRONG LINKS

1) Running sucks! But I make myself do it. Lately, I’ve become interested in learning about the mechanics of running, prepping for races and more. This newsletter, The Rundown shares unique stories as well as stretches, nutrition tips and even cool upcoming races you might be interested in. You can join here:

2) If you want to start your own newsletter, I can’t recommend Beehiiv enough (the platform I use to write Books & Biceps):

→ USE THIS LINK to try Beehiiv and you won’t regret it!

3) Try Thrive25, a cool science newsletter with tips on longevity and health.

👉REMINDER: 2 WAYS TO WIN BIG FROM OUR TITLE SPONSOR ‘SFH’:

1) Please visit SFH’s website to get 15% OFF YOUR ORDER!

2) UPGRADE TO PREMIUM FLEX for your chance to win 2 FREE MONTHS OF PROTEIN POWDER FROM SFH.

Thank you all for reading! Stay Strong! - Jon

BONUS: Check out these greatest hits:

1) This feature has been read by more than 10 MILLION PEOPLE:

How ESPN’s SportsCenter United a Generation in the 90s

2) This breakdown of iconic author Lee Child’s success was read by over 4 MILLION:

PS: You still reading Gus and Mallory? Thanks for getting through the whole thing! No skimming!

Thinking of getting a Premium Flex Membership?

Try it and cancel any time. We’d love to have you. Here’s a breakdown:

If you’ve been looking for a way to read more books (books selected specifically for meatheads like you), to participate in some fitness challenges and connect with the Books & Biceps Teams Community, you won’t regret joining Premium Flex like these guys:

If you read this newsletter most weeks, this is how we support it.

And you’ll get 20% off the monthly rate with my personal member referral discount.

That makes Books & Biceps Premium Flex less than your average movie ticket.

Sound good? You in? Join with my personal discount here:

Here’s a breakdown of the entire Premium Flex Membership:

• Access to the Members Only Tuesday Issue of Books & Biceps, including our “Big Read of the Month”, reading gameplan, breakdowns, rabbit holes & inside author takes

• Access to the Awesome B&B Teams Community: connect w/ your fellow meatheads, talk dude/dad stuff, get daily posts from Jon, members-only breaking news, exclusive publisher giveaways & more

• You get to submit questions directly to bestselling authors through Jon's Behind-the-Book Q&As, including "Big Read of the Month" books

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• Free Access to my Full Digital Library of Meathead Media Books (over 7 titles, including my Freelance Fortune Course - 90 min. video / 3 e-books valued at $250)