Bookreporter.com - BECAUSE YOU CAN'T READ A TIE

2002 Roundup

BECAUSE YOU CAN'T READ A TIE

Should you ever hope to foster a relationship based on mutual admiration and respect with my father, you must never, ever, give him any of the following things:

Clothing: "Do you really think I'm going to stay this fat long enough to wear that?"

Jewelry: "Do I look like that guy, what's his name, Puff Daddy?"

Pajamas: "Do I look like Hugh Hefner?

Underwear: "Did God create Adam wearing a pair of Calvin Klein silk boxers?"

Cologne/aftershave: "Are you serious?"

Tie: "Did I put myself through school to one day be strangled by this albatross?"

The days of slapping my hands into some plaster and passing it off as a "wallet stand" are long behind me (a rather humiliating lesson I learned last year), and the "pursuit of my art" keeps me from ever being able to buy dad a sports car. Pretty much the only thing left for me to give him that I can be assured will not elicit some frustratingly rhetorical question is a book. Dear God, how many books have I bought that man?

Below is a list of books I've given, or intend to give my dad this Father's Day. If I can prevent even one your gift searches from becoming a Herculean task, my time at Bookreporter.com will not have been in vain.

SPORTS
THE BEST AMERICAN SPORTS WRITING OF THE CENTURY
edited by David Halberstam
and Glenn Stout
Houghton Mifflin Company
ISBN: 0395945143
Pages: 776

JOE DIMAGGIO: The Hero's Life
Richard Ben Cramer
Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684853914
Pages: 560

THE HEAD GAME: Baseball Seen from the Pitcher's Mound
Roger Kahn
illustrated by Murray Tinkelman
Harcourt Brace
ISBN: 0156013045
Pages: 310

THE FINAL SEASON: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark
Tom Stanton
Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN: 031227288X
Pages: 248

HOME RUN
edited by George Plimpton
Harcourt
ISBN: 0156011549
Pages: 278

SEABISCUIT: An American Legend
Laura Hillenbrand
Random House
ISBN: 0375502912
Pages: 300

FATHERS AND SONS
UPHILL WITH ARCHIE: A Son's Journey
William H. MacLeish
Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0684824957
Pages: 256

BETWEEN FATHER AND SON: Family Letters
V. S. Naipaul
Vintage Books
ISBN: 0375707263
Pages: 297

RENOVATIONS: A Father and Son Rebuild a House and Rediscover Each Other
John Marchese
Riverhead Books
ISBN: 1573221740
Pages: 256

FIRST AND LAST SEASONS: A Father, A Son, and Sunday Afternoon Football
Dan McGraw
Doubleday
ISBN: 0385498330
Pages: 304

FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS
8 SIMPLE RULES FOR DATING MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER: And Other Tips from a Beleaguered Father
W. Bruce Cameron
Workman Publishing
ISBN: 0761123148
Pages: 316

FICTION
WONDER BOYS
Michael Chabon
Picador
ISBN: 0312140940
Pages: 368

MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN
Jonathon Lethem
Vintage Books
ISBN: 0375724834
Pages: 311

THE COLLECTED STORIES OF RICHARD YATES
Richard Yates
Henry Holt
ISBN: 0805066934
Pages: 496

EMPIRE FALLS
Richard Russo
Knopf
ISBN: 0679432477
Pages: 512

HISTORICAL CATASTROPHES
IN HARM'S WAY: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
Doug Stanton
Henry Holt
ISBN: 0805066322
Pages: 320

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
Nathaniel Philbrick
Viking
ISBN: 0670891576
Pages: 302

ENDURANCE: Schackleton's Incredible Voyage
Alfred Lansing
Carroll & Graf Publishers
ISBN: 0786708425
Pages: 288

THE ICE MASTER: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk and the Miraculous Rescue of Her Survivors
Jennifer Niven
Hyperion
ISBN: 0786865296
Pages: 384

BIOGRAPHY
BOB DYLAN: Behind the Shades
Clinton Heylin
McNally & Loftin Publishers
ISBN: 0688165931
Pages: 592

RIMBAUD: A Biography
Graham Robb
W. W. Norton
ISBN: 0393049558
Pages: 544

JOHN ADAMS
David McCullough
Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0684813637
Pages: 736