For years, Robert Twigger lived in Summertown, Oxford, with his wife and two young children. But he wanted to try something different, so about four years ago the family moved to Cairo, where they are still based.

Living there gave the writer the opportunity to complete his last book, Lost Oasis, which recounted how he began to live like an Egyptian, and trekked into the desert to search for the lost oasis of Zerzura.

Over the years, Twigger has enjoyed some great boys' own adventures - chasing the world's longest python for his book Big Snake, and spending three years canoeing across the Rocky Mountains for Voyageur.

He has used his experiences to write his latest book, Real Men Eat Pufferfish And 93 Other Dangerous Things to Consider. On the cover, a naked man stands contemplating ice-hole swimming, which is task 94.

While Twigger has tried quite a few of the arduous tasks in the tongue-in-cheek handbook, he insists it is not his backside on the cover.

"Yes, I have eaten puffer fish," he tells The Guide from his parents' home outside Oxford.

"You can die from it, but it's not really that dangerous if the dish is prepared properly. I ate puffer fish in a restaurant in Japan and there are poisonous elements in the fish that can make you go numb.

"I didn't experience that numbing sensation, but the problem usually comes when businessmen slip the chef some money to make a stronger dish."

While the writer has not run with bulls (Task 19) in Pamplona, Spain, he has faced a charging bear and made a few passes with a cow, with England's last matador, Frank Evans.

"Cows have horns and they can be just as dangerous as bulls when they get a bit of speed up," Twigger explained.

So why did he feel the need to compile this bizarre to-do list for men, in what is already a rather saturated market, following the success of The Dangerous Books for Boys?

Twigger replies: "I found this book quite easy to write because I have been collecting these strange obsessions over the past 20 years.

"I've tried to make the book funny and I think it's a good laugh. Some of the tasks might sound dangerous but I always try to minimise the risk."

The book will no doubt be enjoyed by the teams of executives who Twigger takes out into the desert for team-building challenges.

His next adventure is riding fat-tyred mountain bikes across a sea of sand on the Libyan/Egyptian border.

I'm a big fan of Twigger's books, so I'm quite tempted to try one or two of the less life-threatening tasks, but I'll leave headbutting a block of ice in two until last.

* Real Men Eat Puffer Fish is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, price £9.99