Old and New

Welcome to the Very Lonely Planet: a single guy Gilligan's Island, a halfway house for teenage boys, indie-rock sad sacks, and clinically shy men whose confinement on the VLP gets warmer, stickier, and more uncomfortable with each passing day.

In A Very Lonely Planet, Ryan Bigge traces the history and psychology of the Single Guy, navigating the often painful, often misguided search for love, companionship, and presumed eternal happiness. With insight and wit, Bigge examines single guydom in decades past -- the invention of the bachelor -- as well as its manifestations in popular culture. He also delves into his own experiences as a prototypical single guy, from a failed week-long blind date in New York to an enjoyable yet fruitless appearance on a cooking/dating TV game show.

Filled with pearls of single-guy wisdom, A Very Lonely Planet is a fresh, lively, and hilarious male confessional that promises to make the Single Guy's search for romance a little less agonizing.

"Every once in a while a book comes along. This is such a book." -- New York Times

"Funny, smart, and wistful... Ryan Bigge is a twenty-something Woody Allen for the twenty-first century." -- Gary Bengi, author of The Erlenmeyer Flask of Heartbreak

Ryan Bigge is one of the tallest (6' 5") freelance writers in North America and a former Managing Editor of Adbusters. His writing has appeared in the National Post, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, Ben is Dead, Chunklet, and Bunnyhop. He currently lives in Toronto.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS
$15.95 U.S. / $18.95 Canada

ISBN 1-55152-094-X (proffering flowers cover)
ISBN 1-55152-108-3 (prophylactic cover)

Distributed in the U.S. by LPC Group

Distributed in Canada by Whitecap Books

Here is the US book catalogue copy, for the keeners in the crowd:

Looking for love in all the weird places? A history of single guydom, a.k.a. A Very Lonely Planet.

Welcome to A Very Lonely Planet: the kingdom of single guydom, a place for men to discuss women problems– the problem being, there aren't any; a place where doggy-style sex means drooling and begging and not much else. It's a halfway house for teenage boys, weepy twentysomething indie-rock sad sacks; the divorced, the widowed, the wretched, and everything in between. A Very Lonely Planet is neither heaven nor hell, but a place that gets warmer, stickier, and more uncomfortable with each passing day.

A Very Lonely Planet the book is one single guy's guide to navigating the search for love, companionship, and presumed eternal happiness. Part One deals with the history of A Very Lonely Planet, its formation (Bronze Age, Stone Age, Alone Age) and institutions (self-government; i.e., "Every man for himself"). Part Two looks at the four magic words– "We Have To Talk"– that commences one's free flight to the enchanted forest of A Very Lonely Planet. Part Three examines long term residents and their cultural relevance to the outside world.

Funny and bittersweet, A Very Lonely Planet is filled with pearls of single-guy wisdom, a book that will make a guy's search for love a little less painful. Amid the plethora of relationship books and magazines aimed at women comes this long-overdue guide for single guys looking to get off the Very Lonely Planet; after all, it ain't all about the football.