Best Books for Father’s Day Gifts
What do you get for the person who has everything? A new book! Father’s Day is coming up in June, so I put together a list of some books that would make great gifts for the father figures in your life. In fact, I’ve given a number of these as gifts to both my father and father-in-law and received good feedback.
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All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff
This is a 40th anniversary re-release of the full Playboy transcript of John Lennon’s final interview, which answered a lot of question about his time with the Beatles and his relationship with Yoko Ono. If your father is a Beatles fan, this is an essential read.
Purchase your copy at: AMAZON BOOKSHOP
The Bear by Andrew Krivak
This was my favorite book published in 2020. It’s told in the style of a fable, and tells the story of the last two humans in existence — a man and his young daughter — and takes the reader year-by-year to a time when only one of them remains. It has elements of post-apocalyptic stories (without the blatant violence,) mythology, Native American folklore, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
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A book made up of three different stories that can be read in two different ways to create alternate endings, this is almost like a grown-up version of a Choose Your Own Adventure. The story of two members of a group of people who are trained from childhood to be able to cross into someone else’s body, who ultimately abuse this gift and suffer the consequences.
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The story of Ameena, a Pakistani-Muslim writer/artist who falls into a relationship with David, an American-Jewish advertising strategist/Jazz musician. This book has a fresh new voice that reminded me of listening to a musical composition.
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The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
The story of Linus Baker, by-the-book a case worker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, who is dispatched to the Marsyas Island Orphanage to report back on the stranger-than-usual goings on with the children — and more importantly — their caretaker Arthur Parnassus, who discovers that rules are only as good as those who make them and that a family is defined by love and not society.
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Tom Hazard has been alive for 400 years, although he looks like he’s in his forties, but all he wants is to live a normal life with the woman he loves, no matter what the rules of The Albatross (secret) Society say. Highly recommended to anyone who likes a bit of science fiction and time travel.
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Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen
A collection of short stories that shows the lives of seemingly ordinary people from modern-day China, until you are reminded that the stories are set within the context of being governed by an authoritarian government. These are haunting stories that will stick with the reader.
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Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
A uniquely written book about President Abraham Lincoln mourning the death of his young son Willie, set against the backdrop of the thousands of parents mourning for their own sons during the Civil War. During the single night of this story, we are visited by dozens of ghosts, all with an individual voice, all witnessing a love between father and son that they have never witnessed before.
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This book is described as “Upstairs, Downstairs meets Parasite,” which does well explaining the class issues in this book, but doesn’t describe the racial undertones within this book, which are what make it unique and new.
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The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Aiden Bishop is caught in a time loop with no idea who he is or why he keeps jumping bodies. All he knows is that Evelyn Hardcastle will die at the end of the day (again) until he figures out who keeps killing her. A complex, smart mystery, this was like the movie Groundhog Day with a strange, dark twist.
Purchase your own copy at: AMAZON BOOKSHOP