Looking for something special this Father’s Day to keep dad busy during lockdown and beyond. Why not get him one of these great books.
Books for dad
Dear Son
Dear Son shares heartfelt letters written by First Nations men about life, masculinity, love, culture and racism. Along with his own vivid and poignant prose and poetry, author and editor Thomas Mayor invites 12 contributors to write a letter to their son, father or nephew, bringing together a range of perspectives that offers the greatest celebration of First Nations manhood.
Survivor – Life in the SAS
Mark and his SAS troops emerged from that scorched battlefield twelve hours later, his mentor gunned down, his dream career now a nightmare. Over four deployments of intense warfighting, Mark watched the line between right and wrong become blurred. When he left the SAS he was adrift, crippled by guilt.
On a mission to rebuild himself, Mark turned his life around. He fought his way into the gates of a US Ivy League business school and into the boardrooms of top-tier international corporations. He spent years navigating failure in a quest to find new meaning in life. With every setback Mark counterattacked, discovering the tactics and tools needed to become more resilient, and to find happiness, belonging and purpose.
Grab a copy of Survivor – Life in the SAS HERE
The School
Brendan James Murray has been a high school teacher for more than ten years. In that time he has seen hundreds of kids move through the same hallways and classrooms – boisterous, angry, shy, big-hearted, awkward – all of them on the journey to adulthood.
In The School, he paints an astonishingly vivid portrait of a single school year, perfectly capturing the highs and lows of being a teenager, as well as the fire, passion and occasional heartbreak of being their teacher. Hilarious, heartfelt and true, it is a timeless story of a teacher and his classes, a must-read for any parent, and a tribute to the art of teaching.
How We Became Human
Over thousands of years, humans have developed mechanisms to help us live together in ever-larger social groups. We developed a set of ‘moral emotions’ such as empathy, guilt and outrage, as well as a tendency to favour people in our in-groups and a propensity to punish perceived wrongdoers. Our culture also evolved, giving us powerful tools like religion and politics that could expand community sizes and maintain moral order. While these mechanisms served our ancestors well, though, our evolved sense of right and wrong is out of step with the modern world.
Brain Reset
According to bestselling author and researcher David Gillespie, we are more addicted than ever before, which is playing havoc with our dopamine levels. This is fuelling epidemic-like levels of depression, anxiety and stress.
Gillespie reveals a large and robust body of research that shows how addictive activities, such as screen use, sugar consumption, drinking, gambling, shopping and smoking, spike our dopamine levels. This, in turn, affects our brain’s ability to regulate our mood.
The Keeper of Miracles
For more than 30 years, Phillip Maisel has worked selflessly to record the harrowing stories of Holocaust survivors.
Volunteering at Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Centre, Phillip has listened tirelessly to their memories, preserved their voices and proven, time and time again, just how healing storytelling can be. Each testimony of survival is a miracle in itself – earning Phillip the nickname ‘the Keeper of Miracles’.
Get your copy of The Keeper of Miracles HERE
Courage Under Fire
‘A man selfless in the face of threat. Courageous in the face of terror. Generous in the face of suffering. And humble in the face of an honour bestowed.’
Dame Quentin Bryce
On 24 August 2010, in battle in Afghanistan, Corporal Daniel Keighran risked his life in a hail of gunfire to save his fellow soldiers. His actions saw him awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia, making him the 99th Australian to receive our country’s highest award for bravery.
Courage Under Fire tells of Daniel’s unlikely journey to become one of Australia’s most celebrated soldiers.
The Survivors
The compelling new novel from Jane Harper, the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry.
Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.
The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.
Kieran’s parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.
When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away…
Get a copy of The Survivors NOW
A Gambling Man
It is nearly 1950 and Aloysius Archer is on his way to Bay Town, California to take up a post with renowned gumshoe, Willie Dash. Making an overnight stop in Reno he gets lucky at the casino, meets a talented actor named Liberty Callahan with her sights set on Hollywood, and helps out a man threatened by mobsters for a bad debt. With a magnificent Delahaye motor as his repayment, Archer goes west with Liberty to seek work, fame and fortune. The journey is dangerous and full of surprises as Liberty shows her steel and reveals she has a past as dark as Archer’s.
Fully Human
A mother of small children trusts her ‘gut feeling’ and it saves her life. A young dad is able to grieve for his lost baby – using a song.
What if there were parts of our minds that we never use, but if awakened, could make us so much happier, connected and alive? What if awakening those parts could bring peace to the conflicts and struggles we all go through?
From the cutting edge, where therapy meets neuroscience, Steve Biddulph explores the new concept of ‘supersense’ – the feelings beneath our feelings – which can guide us to a more awake and free way of living every minute of our lives. And the Four Storey Mansion, a way of using your mind that can be taught to a five-year-old, but can also help the most damaged adult.
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