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Best Books for Dad 2010

Father's Day

Best Books for Dad 2010

Father’s Day is a time to celebrate the men in our lives who have raised and inspired us. Why not show him your appreciation by inspiring him with a great book?

Coop: A Family, a Farm, and the Pursuit of One Good Egg by Michael Perry - Memoir

Living in a ramshackle Wisconsin farmhouse—faced with thirty-seven acres of fallen fences and overgrown fields, and informed by his pregnant wife that she intends to deliver their baby at home—Michael Perry plumbs his unorthodox childhood for clues to how to proceed as a farmer, a husband, and a father.

Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir Of Survival by Norman Ollestad - Memoir

Chances are, your father’s lessons --- the big ones and the small ones --- have remained in your memories and influenced your behavior and outlook even after you’ve outgrown childhood. Fathers’ spheres of influence tend to be larger than even they know.

Nowhere is this idea more dramatically portrayed than in Norman Ollestad’s moving memoir, CRAZY FOR THE STORM.

Don't Let Me Go: What My Daughter Taught Me About the Journey Every Parent Must Make by David W. Pierce - Nonfiction

One day after reading a book about a wilderness adventurer, David Pierce’s 15-year-old daughter Chera announced that she wanted to climb a mountain. What David heard behind that wish was a bold declaration: “I’m growing up, Dad --- what are you going to do about it?”

A few weeks later they bought matching backpacks.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson - Thriller

In the concluding volume of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition in a Swedish hospital, a bullet in her head. But she's fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she'll stand trial for three murders. 

Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams - Memoir

A pitch-perfect account of how hip-hop culture drew in the author and how his father drew him out again-with love, perseverance, and 15,000 books.

Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon - Memoir

Chabon touches on many of the motifs that he has explored in his other nonfiction writing and in his novels --- baseball, comics, sex, writing, religion --- but inevitably circles back to what is, for him, at the center of it all: his family.

North by Northwestern: A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaskan Waters by Captain Sig Hansen and Mark Sundeen - Memoir

This is the story of a family of survivors; part memoir and part adventure tale, North By Northwestern  brings readers on deck, into the dockside bars and into the history of a family with a common destiny. Built around a gripping tale of a deadly shipwreck like The Perfect Storm, North By Northwestern is the multi-generational tale of the Hansen family, a clan of tough Norwegian-American fishermen who, through the popularity of The Deadliest Catch, have become modern folk-heroes.

The Pacific by Hugh Ambrose - History

Hugh Ambrose reveals the intertwined odysseys of four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy carrier pilot during World War II.

Raiders From the North: Empire of the Moghul by Alex Rutherford - Historical Fiction

The mighty Empire of the Moghuls burst out of Central Asia into India in the 16th century. The first in a compelling new series of novels, RAIDERS FROM THE NORTH tells the largely unknown story of the rise and fall of the Mogul dynasties.

Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford - Nonfiction

A philosopher/mechanic's wise (and sometimes funny) look at the challenges and pleasures of working with one's hands.

Unfinished Business: One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do the Right Things by Lee Kravitz - Memoir

Former Parade editor-in-chief Kravitz makes amends and spends a year living connectedly. Reflecting on his life after losing his job, the author was not pleased with what he found --- a workaholic living in self-exile not just from his family but his greater life. He felt diminished because of his firing, and he felt guilty about the important things he dropped by the wayside: family and friends, a broad curiosity, an inclusive worldview.