Unless you are lucky enough to have a Dad (or other significant male figure) who has an endless hobby - like listening to the blues, doing crossword puzzles or cooking experimental food, then you have probably faced that long dark week before Christmas with no flipping idea what to buy the man. You are usually cursing him (in a very loving way) as you purchase one more horrible tie, shirt or sad bottle of aftershave knowing he will hate it, you will feel stupid and the whole experience will just depress you both.
Oh how I feel your pain. (My father was an excellent hobby guy, my step father is your basic holiday nightmare.) Here are just a few ideas - if he ever reads a book then he might like one of these.
A Great and Glorious Game by A. Barlett Giamatti. This small collection of essays written by the long lamented baseball commissioner covers everything from his own love of the game, ("It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart."), to he comments after banning Pete Rose for life. Giamatti was a brilliant and articulate man and this collection has never failed to impress me. It is a must buy for the baseball fan in your life.
While you are thinking baseball, Roger Kahn's classic about the Brookyn Dodgers of the 1955 season (he covered them as a reporter) is sports writing at its best. The Boys of Summer is not only about the game at one of its most glorious eras, and the team that changed sports forever (Jackie Robinson was key for the non-baseball literate), but it is also about what happened later, almost twenty years later, when Kahn went looking for the men he had known so well. This book is, of course, about baseball but more importantly about men, and what makes a man rise above all that has been hard or sad or soul crushing in a life. It's about how to be a man, a truly great man, long after leaving the ballfield behind. Truly superior literature, even for non ball fans.
The Hunters by James Salter. The first book by this great writer, Salter's book about flying during the Korean War is a classic. It is riveting, intense, and starkly dramatic. The story of Cleve Connell and his goal to become an ace brings into play all sorts of questions about courage and cowardice, both during war and on the ground. From the back cover, the Washington Post writes, "...He can...break your heart with a sentence." This is a great book about writing and war, something that rarely happens (see all the works of Tim O'Brien for other stellar examples), and shoud always be relished.
Billy Boyle by James Benn. I reviewed this great WWII mystery at Bookslut last month and also sent a copy to my step-Dad for Christmas. It's a great mystery set during the war in England as the plan to invade Norway was underway. American Billy Boyle doesn't want to be in the war but can't get out of it (could anyone?) and as a cop finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation on top of a search for a traitor. The dialog is witty and quick and the history dead-on. It's a perfect set-up for a series and reads easy and quick. See also Clayton Moore's mention of the title in his Bookslut column, and also all the great mysteries he reviews this month.
And speaking of mysteries, I adore Howard Fast's novels about 1960's Beverly Hills detective Masao Masuto. A California-born Japanese American, Masuto is also a "practicing Zen Buddhist, karate expert and devoted to his roses." His stories are not only excellent mysteries (in Masuto Investigates there is the story of a raped and long missing starlet and dead stamp dealer that leads the detective back to the Holocaust), but also a grand sweeping view of Japanese American life in California during the post WWiI era. Masuto is cool - wickedly cool - and I adore these stories. If you have a mystery fan in the house who doesn't mind a retro story, then these are sure fire winners.
