Iron John

Robert Bly, a poet and translator, reads the Grimms' fairy tale Iron John, in which a wild man guides a boy through eight stages of growth into adulthood, as a source of lessons for modern men. Drawing on Jungian psychology, myth, anthropology and folklore, and on his own work with men, he argues that the images of manhood offered by popular culture have worn out. Bly writes about the damage done by remote fathers, mourns the loss of male initiation rites and urges men to embrace their fathers' world and its values of limits, sobriety and authority. A New York Times best seller for 62 weeks, it became a founding text of the mythopoetic men's movement.

Learn Your Land founder Adam Haritan named it among a few books that helped him figure out his role, purpose and mission in life.