Welcome to the Premium Flex members only Tuesday Issue of Books & Biceps for June 18, 2024!

Before we get to Part II of our First Blood book breakdown and my strategy for shattering 3 minutes in our 100 push-ups/day physical challenge, here are a few awesome things:

1) Congratulations to Premium Flex Member Mark from North Carolina who won the 1st Father’s Day watch from La Touraine! He got his watch on Saturday and was so fired up he already send us a pic!:

2) We’ll be notifying the 2nd winner later today! Appreciate so many of you upgrading for the Father’s Day Giveaway. We had two sweet watches for the contest, BUT REMEMBER:

All Premium Flex Members will get 25% OFF your first purchase at La Touraine!

All you have to do is enter the promo code “Biceps” at checkout when you visit La Touraine’s website HERE.

3) The NEW Premium Flex Membership stickers are IN! I mentioned to a few of you who wrote that I made the biceps too large on the first sticker so the arms got cut off, haha… But you can’t keep a good meathead down! Already put the new one on my laptop:

→ Please reply to this email with your address so I can send you your sticker. Thanks!

This week’s sponsor is super timely because I just happened to make a bet on Wednesday that Bryson DeChambeau would win the U.S. Open and… BOOM! My man took it home!

On that note, we’re brought to you by Planet Golf News. I enjoy playing golf once or twice a month if I can, but I mostly only watch the Sundays of Majors… I still like to keep up with it, though, and this newsletter does a good job of sharing the highlights and “What you need to know” news. Give’em a look.

First Blood by David Morrell

If you missed my full introduction to the novel in Issue #303 of Books & Biceps you can read it here. In short, this is the book that Stallone’s Rambo movie was eventually based off of and it’s super different and excellent.

This week we’re reading pages 91-180 and MAN, does this book go off the rails (in a great way) once we get deep into the Rambo vs. Teasle showdown in the mountains…

Now let’s get into this week’s THREE THINGS:

1) THE MOST INSANE ACTION SEQUENCE:

The sequence where Rambo scales down a cliff wall while under fire from a helicopter and then he LEAPS OFF the cliff, hundreds of feet in the air, towards the top of a giant fir tree while bullets whizz past him is a masterpiece.

This section puts you right there… Into the action… Into Rambo’s mindset… Into all of it and it’s brilliant:

“He hung by his bleeding fingers, and the helicopter swooped towards him like some grotesque dragonfly, and sweet Jesus, keep that damn thing moving, don’t let it hang still so he can get a decent shot. Ca-rang! Chips of stone and molten bullet ripped burning into the side of his face…”

And then we get the full description of Rambo flinging himself off the rock face into the tree and we can feel the pummeling his body takes as he slams into the branches, shattering his ribs and nearly killing him:

Then Morrell kicks things up a notch and Rambo goes toe-to-toe with a helicopter. It’s riveting writing… the best kind of action writing…

Did you all find yourself gripping the book tight as you blew through these pages? I did… Or did you have another scene in mind?

I give this sequence 5 biceps out of 5:💪💪💪💪💪

2) MOST MEMORABLE DIALOGUE

So much of the best dialogue in this book is actually internal dialogue rather than quotes from the characters to each other. But when Colonel Sam Trautman finally arrives on scene, he gives a great monologue explaining how deadly Rambo is… It’s in a few parts, but this is so good. Reminds me of the Jason Bourne monologue about how he can run flat out for a half-mile before his hands start shaking:

“It’s my guess that none of your people will get close enough to see him, let alone catch him. He’s much smarter and tougher than you can imagine… He’s an expert in guerrilla fighting, he knows how to live off the land… He’s learned patience, so he can hide somewhere and wait out this fight all year if he has to… He can move fast, shoot, get out and hide someplace else… Then do it all over again. Just like my men taught him.”

And if you want to compare the scene in the book to the scene in the movie, here’s the film version: