4th Edition almost available
The Wife has finished her final proofreading of the 4th edition of Leisureguy’s Guide to Gourmet Shaving, and I’ve uploaded the PDF file and submitted it for approval. Since the 4th edition will probably be available for purchase by Tuesday or Wednesday, I have made the current 3rd edition “unavailable.”
The 4th edition took longer than I thought. I was expecting early August as a pub date, but then I got involved in getting some of my razors revamped at Razor Emporium, and I wanted to include photos of the results. Revamping is a process that requires a fair amount of work and time, including shipping the razors to a replating service once they have been prepped. It can easily take a month before the razors return, as it did for mine.
And during that time, new shaving information and products came to market, so I was able to include those as well.
I’m quite proud of the 4th edition—it feels solid and complete. I added quite a few new product mentions (from new products or new-to-me products, like the horsehair shaving brushes) and refined some of my shaving advice based on forum feedback. For example, it turns out that the shave stick is not all that easy for everyone—some, even those who have good shaving experience, find them difficult. So I included a note that the shave stick is easy for most, but not all, shavers. Nothing is more frustrating to a beginner than having considerable difficulty with something an instructional book calls “easy”, so I am grateful to the forum commenters—as will be the newbies who read the book. 
I’ll post on the blog when the book is available.
