Boom! Welcome to our hundreds of new readers this week and a special shout out to everyone who grabbed our LIMITED EDITION Powder Blue Books & Biceps Tee. It’s the easiest purchase ever. You read B&B every week. Now rep the sophisticated meathead crew in Carolina blue. The shirt is only available for TWO MORE DAYS.

Thank you to everyone who has shared this newsletter with a friend or fellow meathead. In fact, if an awesome B&B readers shared this with you, add your e-mail with the subscribe button below:

If you’re a new subscriber you’ll love this profile that the New Yorker ran on us.

I’m giving you a themed two-fer this week because with so many Sophisticated Meatheads on summer vacation at beaches, shore houses and ocean rentals, the influx of DMs asking for “beach reads” is in full swing.

For most people, “beach reads” is a catch-all term for any exciting, entertaining book they want to plop down in a lounge chair and read.

But for me, I take it literally. If you ask me for a book to read on the beach at the ocean, I’m going to recommend two non-fiction books about the ocean. Both true stories. One is an insane tale of survival and the other is a period piece about the actual shark attacks that inspired Jaws. Grab these and read them at the beach, or safely in your hotel room or on your balcony. Trust me. You’ll feel much safer on land!

Wherever you’re reading this issue right now, you’re likely comfortable. You’re probably in an air conditioned room. You have food and water nearby. You know where you are and how to get where you’re going. There are people around who can help.

Now imagine if you strip all of that away and you’re stuck on a rubber raft in the Atlantic ocean by yourself. Lost. With no water. No food. No clothes. Exposed to the elements. At the mercy of the sea.

Your assets: a small survival kit and barely working solar still for fresh water, a spear gun that breaks, a knife, some random items you grabbed from your boat before it sank and a sextant made from old pencils.

How long would you survive? 3 days? 7? Two weeks?

Do you think you could make it 76 days?

Steven Callahan did. And I re-read his book, Adrift, at the start of every summer to remind myself how good I have it with all this AC and available food and water.

If you haven’t heard of the book, it was a national sensation when it first came out a few years after Callahan survived his journey in 1982.

It’s a fast read and Callahan is a gifted storyteller. It’s one of the few books that you will be reading late into the night to find out what happened - even though you know he made it because you’re reading the book.

It’ll make you think about your own mortality and potential survival skills and you’ll find yourself assessing how you’d hold up mentally at certain points in his journey, like when he’s forced to eat fish eyes to stave off dehydration. Or when he tried to eat a raw bird. Or how he dealt with endless hallucinations and skin sores and near-sinkings.

I recommend reading it now, in the middle of summer, while the weather is getting nice and hot, so you get the full feeling of dehydration, heat, desperation and courage-against-all-odds that Steve shares.

Grab it here.

I write in three main spots: my house, a local coffee shop a mile from my house and a Barnes & Noble about ten minutes away.

Like most Barnes & Nobles ours has a Starbucks coffee shop tucked into one side with a large seating area filled with tables. When it comes to writing, I’m a creature of habit.

I’ll typically walk into BN, cruise around the store and browse for a bit, then I’ll grab a small black coffee and sit at the same one or two tables every time, both way off to the left, making sure I only have people on one side of me and nothing but books on the other.

In my local store, the coffee shop juts out into the Natural Science and Wilderness book section. I like it. When my eyes wander up from my screen I see book covers with everything from wolves and giant squid to volcanoes, vultures and there’s one about a parrot and a scientist becoming best buds (Alex & Me) that I’ll check out one day.

But, THE ONE book that was in my eye line for about a year, that stared at me week after week, beckoning me to read, was Close to Shore.

Great cover. Great subtitle. Great white shark.

One day a while back the Wi-Fi went down while I was doing some research so I ambled over and finally picked it up. I learned two quick things: one, the book chronicles the real life shark attacks that took place in 1916 and inspired the book Jaws (the movie came after). And two, the book was a New York Times bestseller 20 years ago.

Naturally, I flipped through it to find the first shark attack scene and came across this great writing: “As the creature’s shadow merged with his on the bright, sandy floor of the sea, Charles experienced an adrenal explosion, the overpowering natural urge to live. He was in only three and a half feet of water, close to shore. Safety was at hand. But it was too late. The great jaws rose from the water, fifty triangular teeth closed with more than six tons of pressure per square inch, and man and fish splashed in a spreading pool of blood…”

Damn. Then I flipped back to the beginning and couldn’t stop reading. The description of beach life on the jersey shore in 1916, the sharks, the characters, the fears, the newspapers… It’s a brilliant, fast read that takes you back to a simpler, tech-free time that feels at once familiar and distant. No screens. No phones. No TV. Little national media beyond print. And yet, a single, bloodthirsty shark captivated the entire east coast.

If you’re looking for a quick beach read to escape winter for a bit, I highly recommend it.

A few issues ago I shared this video of a weekend I spent weight training under water. That was a blast to do and I’ve since shown my son how to do some of the training in our own pool. But one thing I’ve also been curious about is how to incorporate it into making me a faster swimmer.

There are all kinds of ways to add resistance to sprints: wearing a baggy bathing suit, bungee work, water parachutes, etc… But unlike being able to add a weighted vest for pull-ups or hold a dumbbell between your knees for dips, there’s really no great way to add weight to swimming to build strength… Until now.

This week I experimented with some one-armed butterfly drills while holding a ten-pound dumbbell to my chest. It worked pretty well.

I’d go right arm down, left arm back on one minute. The goal was to keep a strong, full stroke with my swimming hand while clutching the weight to my sternum. Keeps streamline while adding weight to my body, which forces me to use a stronger stroke.

It was odd at first, but cool. Don’t have any other converts yet on my team, but I think a few will try it soon. We’ll call it the “don’t drown” training method haha.

If you’re a guy over 40 and you’ve been looking for a new digital magazine that’s written for midlife men, by midlife men, on the topics that actually matter to us: family, fitness, fashion, finance, food & fun, then join us at Midlife Male.

I’m the Editor-in-Chief and I write a column every Tuesday called The Manologue. This week we made a HUGE announcement about our new premium subscription and it reminded me of my earliest days writing for all the man’s magazines. Read it here, then check out our premium offering over at Midlife Male:

We’ve been getting in so many incredible early endorsements for Bear Brawl that I wanted to share a few here. This one is from Eli Cranor, an Edgar-Winning, incredible writer whose work I’ve long admired. These mean so much:

I’ve recommended several of Eli’s books here in this newsletter and now to have him recommend one of mine is so awesome! You should also listen to Eli and buy the book ASAP right here:

Also, if you haven’t yet, you need to head to the EXCEPTIONAL Bear Brawl book site right now to see how you’d do in a fight with a pissed off black bear. Yes, we put together a cool game for you. It’s simple:

1) Use the slider.

2) Choose your height, weight, strength & fighting style.

3) Click, Run the fight!

Let me know how you do! (then pre-order the book, obviously)

Thanks for reading - Jon

Jon Finkel is the award-winning author of Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage, 1996: A Biography, Hoops Heist, The Life of Dad, Jocks In Chief, The Athlete, Heart Over Height, “Mean” Joe Greene and more. His books have been endorsed by everyone from Mark Cuban, John Cena and Tony Dungy to Spike Lee, Kevin Durant and Chef Robert Irvine. He has written for GQ, Men’s Health, Yahoo! Sports, The New York Times and has appeared on CBS: This Morning, Good Morning Texas, Good Morning Chicago, and hundreds of radio shows, podcasts and streams. Jon was recently profiled in The New Yorker about the awesome community he’s built around his Books & Biceps newsletter. They describe him as “a gym rat’s Reese Witherspoon”. Reply to this email for any media requests. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Midlife Male and a Top 10 US Masters Swimmer in the 50 and 100 butterfly.

SOME GREAT STUFF FOR YOU:

Upgrade to the Books & Biceps FULL ACCESS Plan Here: You’ll get every Meathead Media Digital Book, Course & Challenge for one ridiculously fair price. That’s over 300,000 words and 120+ workouts in one place.

Visit the Official Books & Biceps Store! Grab our classic gray T-Shirt, our Thirst for Knowledge Glass, our Bench O’Clock Monday Morning Mug or our limited time Powder Blue B&B Original!

→ WANT TO BOOK THE TITLE SPONSORSHIP FOR AUGUST??? Get in front of 30,000 awesome readers who focus on: reading, wellness, fitness, nutrition, entertainment, sports and more!

Previous sponsors include Nike, Random House, Netflix, Huel, HubSpot, SFH Nutrition, La Touraine Watches, Precision Skincare and more…

Download our media kit here:

→ Reply to this email for rates and availability.