I was motivated to read BACK IN SHAPE: A BACK OWNER’S MANUAL by my own back pain issues (in my case caused mostly by my own waistline largess). The concept is a good one. A guide to how your back works, what can go wrong with it and how to maintain it. The first half of the book is excellent detailing the myths and modern strategies of caring for the back. The Manual’s strategy is to exercise the back whenever possible—even while you are in pain—and it makes a compelling argument. To their credit the author does not down play the often nebulous nature of back pain. Any given pain can have a myriad of causes but generally our pain relates to muscle strain—improper use of our dilapidated out of shape backs—so strengthening our backs as soon as possible is the goal. At about the half way point, the book details some exercises for strengthening your back. Fairly well illustrated, and there is a nice variety of exercises but this is where the book begins to decline. Despite the very good set up, the exercises are presented in a rather sloppy manner. As a bunch they are just plopped into the book. Would have appreciated an outline of how to group exercises, repetitions recommended, etc. From this point on, the book feels like a draft of a book about backs. There is interesting info but it is all just dumped onto the page and often repeating info from the first half. In fact, there are more exercises in the second half but many or most of them were the same as in the first half. The second half feels like a failed first draft of the first half. Over all a valuable tool and I am succeeding in using what it has taught me about strengthening my back but not what it could have been. ( )