Bought this book again recently, and thought it was finally time to post a review of it. 
I first found this in a bookshop years ago, just when some engineer friends of mine had their first baby, so I bought it as an impulse joke gift for them. It was easy to read, informative, and entertaining. I’m an engineer, with no prior baby experience, as were my two newly-parented friends; obviously the author’s target audience.
The book itself was written by father-and-son combination (a doctor and a parent) in the style of a computer manual – you know… the manual you never read… the manual which comes with your new PC… full of simplified diagrams, with bubbles and arrows, showing you how to plug in the printer? and troubleshooting techniques if the mouse doesnt work?… well, this book is exactly that, except its all about how to pickup a baby, burp a baby, change a baby’s diaper (different instructions for boy and girl!), wrap a baby, simple medical issues, while sending you to your nearest Baby Service Provider for more complex problems.
They smiled politely when I gave them the book, but you could tell they thought I was a little nuts.
Weeks later, they each pulled me aside and confided that they learnt lots from the book, loved it and were busy recommending it to other parents. It had become their first book to reach for, exactly because of its quick-troubleshooting design, and they learnt lots of practical tips just browsing through. Wow, funny and really useful. That settled it. Over the years, its become a kinda tradition now for me to buy it for any engineer friends who are having their first baby. So, Monday night, I delivered a copy of this book, along with some other gifts to a proud new parent at Mozilla. At this point, I’ve bought maybe a dozen copies, mostly through amazon, so who knows what that is doing to my own Amazon.com account profile! 🙂
The publishers must think its successful, because they have recently started a series of books in a similar vein: The Dog Owner’s Manual, The Cat Owner’s Manual, The Toddler Owner’s Manual, The Home Owner’s Manual, etc…
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