Fatherhood Books

The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be, Second Edition

Armin A. Brott

Amazon Price: $9.56 List Price: $11.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Abbeville Press Amazon Marketplace: 267 new & used starting at $0.32

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> Women's Health -> Pregnancy & Childbirth -> General
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Family Relationships -> Fatherhood
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Parenting -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 244 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Ridiculously focused on the father. 1 out of 5 stars.
7 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This is my first and probably only Amazon review, but this book pushed me to it. As an upcoming first time dad, I was looking for books geared toward informing the father. Most books geared towards the soon-to-be dads tend to be humorous in nature, to varying degrees of success. This one was serious and quite informative. However, it suffers from a flawed sense of perspective that I found very distracting. It chronologically presents the journey of pregnancy and how it impacts the expectant father, but almost as if the male is agonizing more than the mom.

A perfect example comes from the chapter covering the 9th month of pregnancy: "Your partner's increased dependency is considered a "normal" part of pregnancy, But thanks to the ridiculous, gender-specific way we socialize people in this country, men are supposed to be independent, strong, supportive, and impervious to emotional needs - especially while their partners are pregnant. So just when you are feeling most vulnerable and least in control, your needs are swept under the rug, And what's worse, the one person you most depend on for sympathy and understanding may be too absorbed in what's going on with herself and the baby to do much for you".

This tone is pervasive throughout the book. If you relate to the above passage, you'll probably greatly enjoy this book. However, I was looking more for information about the experience of pregnancy and the father's role in it - not how to "cope" with the pressures and hassles. I think my wife had enough of those to deal with during these months, while I honestly didn't encounter any of the stresses the authors detail.

To summarize: Straightforward, and informative, but preoccupied with fatherly trials and travails that border on the unintentionally humorous.

Editorial Review:

An information-packed guide to all the emotional, financial and physical changes the father-to-be may experience during the course of his partner's pregnancy. Incorporating the wisdom of top experts in the field, from obstetricians and birth-class instructors to psychologists and sociologists, this book is filled with sound advice and practical tips for men, as well as New Yorker-style cartoons that will keep anxious fathers-to-be chuckling.

Big Russ and Me: Father and Son: Lessons of Life

Tim Russert

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Miramax Amazon Marketplace: 76 new & used starting at $6.36

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Entertainers
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Television Performers
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 132 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Veteran newsman and Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert is known for his direct and unpretentious style and in this charming memoir he explains why. Russert's father is profiled as a plainspoken World War II veteran who worked two blue-collar jobs while raising four kids in South Buffalo but the elder Russert's lessons on how to live an honest, disciplined, and ethical life are shown to be universal. Big Russ and Me, a sort of Greatest Generation meets Tuesdays with Morrie, could easily have become a sentimental pile of mush with a son wistfully recalling the wisdom of his beloved dad. But both Russerts are far too down-to-earth to let that happen and the emotional content of the book is made more direct, accessible, and palatable because of it. The relationship between father and son, contrary to what one would think of as essential to a riveting memoir, seems completely healthy and positive as Tim, the academically gifted kid and later the esteemed TV star and political operative relies on his old man, a career sanitation worker and newspaper truck driver, for advice. Big Russ and Me also traces Russert's life from working-class kid to one of broadcast journalism's top interviewers by introducing various influential figures who guided him along the way, including Jesuit teachers, nuns, his dad's drinking buddies, and, most notably, the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom Russert helped get elected in 1976. Plenty of entertaining anecdotes are served up along the way from schoolyard pranks to an attempt to book Pope John Paul II on the Today Show. Though not likely to revolutionize modern thought, Big Russ and Me will provide fathers and sons a chance to reflect on lessons learned between generations. --Charlie Williams

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know

Meg Md Meeker

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Ballantine Books Amazon Marketplace: 40 new & used starting at $8.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Family Relationships -> Fatherhood
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Family Relationships -> General
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Parenting -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 117 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In today’s increasingly complicated world, it’s often difficult for parents to connect with their daughters–and especially so for fathers. In this unique and invaluable guide, Dr. Meg Meeker, a pediatrician with more than twenty years’ experience counseling girls, reveals that a young woman’s relationship with her father is far more important than we’ve ever realized. To become a strong, confident woman, a daughter needs her father’s attention, protection, courage, and wisdom. Dr. Meeker shares the ten secrets every father needs to know in order to strengthen or rebuild bonds with his daughter and shape her life–and his own–for the better. Inside you’ll discover:

• the essential virtues of strong fathers–and how to develop them
• the cues daughters take from their dads on everything from self-respect to drugs, alcohol, and sex
• the truth about ground rules (girls do want them, despite their protests)
• the importance of becoming a hero to your daughter
• the biggest mistake a dad can make–and the ramifications
• the fact that girls actually depend on their dads’ guidance into adulthood
• steps fathers can follow to help daughters avoid disastrous decisions and mistakes
• ways in which a father’s faith–or lack thereof–will influence his daughter
• essential communication strategies for different stages of a girl’s life
• true stories of “prodigal daughters”–and how their fathers helped to bring them back

Dads, you are far more powerful than you think–and if you follow Dr. Meeker’s advice, the rewards will be unmatched.

“Reassuring and challenging . . . a helpful road map for concerned fathers [that] tackles difficult issues.”
–National Review

“A touching, illuminating book that will prove valuable to all of us who are fortunate enough to have been blessed with daughters.”
–Michael Medved, nationally syndicated radio talk-show host, author of Right Turns

“Dr. Meeker’s conclusions are timely, relevant, and often deeply moving. No one interested in what girls experience growing up in our culture today–and the impact that parents, especially fathers, have on the experience–can afford to miss reading this book.”
–Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., M.D., professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons

Tim Russert

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 62 new & used starting at $4.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Essays -> General
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Marriage & Family

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 108 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What does it really mean to be a good father? What did your father tell you, that has stayed with you throughout your life? Was there a lesson from him, a story, or a moment that helped to make you who you are? Is there a special memory that makes you smile when you least expect it?

After the publication of Tim Russert’s number one New York Times bestseller about his father, Big Russ & Me, he received an avalanche of letters from daughters and sons who wanted to tell him about their own fathers, most of whom were not superdads or heroes but ordinary men who were remembered and cherished for some of their best moments–of advice, tenderness, strength, honor, discipline, and occasional eccentricity.

Most of these daughters and sons were eager to express the gratitude they had carried with them through the years. Others wanted to share lessons and memories and, most important, pass them down to their own children.

This book is for all fathers, young or old, who can learn from the men in these pages how to get it right, and to understand that sometimes it is the little gestures that can make the big difference for your child. For some in this book, the appreciation came later than they would have liked. But as Wisdom of Our Fathers reminds us, it is never too late to embrace it.

From the father who coached his daughter in sports (and life), attending every meet, game, performance, and tournament, to the daughter who, after a fifteen-year estrangement, learned to make peace with her difficult father just before he died, to the son who came, at last, to appreciate the silent way his father could show affection, Wisdom of Our Fathers shares rewarding lessons, immeasurable gifts, and lasting values.

Heartfelt, humorous, engaging, irresistibly readable, and bound to bring back memories of unforgettable moments with our own fathers, Tim Russert’s new book is not only a fitting companion to his own marvelous memoir, but also a celebration of the positive qualities passed down from generation to generation.


From the Hardcover edition.

Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads

Gary Greenberg, Jeannie Hayden

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 72 new & used starting at $2.26

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Gender Studies -> Men
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Marriage & Family
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> Sociology -> Men

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 83 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Take your average guide for new mothers, chuck most of the stuff about breast feeding and ditch the deep background research and stats, then generously pepper with illustrations and burley humor and what do you have? Your average guide for new fathers. Be Prepared follows that template pretty closely, and that's really quite an acceptable thing. Yes, there's a bit too much emphasis here on broadly drawn manly stuff like changing a diaper at a ballgame, but there's also heaps of useful advice that's cleverly and efficiently presented for pops who, despite their best intentions, really aren't prepared to dig into encyclopedia-sized tomes. The basics (childproofing, bathing, feeding, entertaining) intermix with nifty sidebars (homemade bath toys, foods to never give your baby, exercises for dads) in easy-to-peruse chapters organized according to the age of the offspring up to age 1. There are more thorough how-to guides for new dads, but for most men moving into fatherhood, Be Prepared will fill the bill. --Steven Stolder

The Film Club: A Memoir

David Gilmour

Amazon Price: $14.95 List Price: $21.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Twelve Amazon Marketplace: 57 new & used starting at $10.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Movies -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"I loved David Gilmour's sleek, potent little memoir, The Film Club. It's so, so wise in the ways of fathers and sons, of movies and movie-goers, of love and loss."
--- Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Empire Falls

"If all sons had dads like David Gilmour, then Oedipus would be a forgotten legend and Father's Day would be a worldwide film festival."

--Sean Wilsey, author of Oh the Glory of It All

"David Gilmour is a very unlikely moral guidance counselor: he's broke, more or less unemployed and has two children by two different women. Yet when it looks as though his teenage son is about to go off the rails, he reaches out to him through the only subject he knows anything about: the movies. The result is an object lesson in how fathers should talk to their sons." --Toby Young, author of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People



At the start of this brilliantly unconventional family memoir, David Gilmour is an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his fifteen-year-old son Jesse to do his homework. When he realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, he offers his son an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent - but he must watch three movies a week of his father's choosing.

Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from True Romance to Rosemary's Baby to Showgirls, and films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Billy Wilder, among others. The movies got them talking about Jesse's life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies.

Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship - and their own lives changed in surprising ways.

What a Difference a Daddy Makes: The Indelible Imprint a Dad Leaves on His Daughter's Life

Kevin Leman

Amazon Price: $10.19 List Price: $14.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Thomas Nelson Amazon Marketplace: 57 new & used starting at $5.05

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Social Sciences -> General
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Family Relationships -> Fatherhood
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Parenting -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Very good for the first time Dad and the experienced one too 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book was recommended to me by my brother-in-law who has 4 daughters. I just have one. Most of the chapters were relevant to my situation although it really focuses on the teen and young adult situations the author had experienced. It did open my eyes to other areas of my daughter's life I must pay attention to. The last chapter(Epilogue) was hard to read. I really got emotional about it. It really made me think about the future of my daughter and how to stay involved in it throughout adulthood. I highly recommend it.

Editorial Review:

Study after study shows that fathers set up their daughters for success. Involved fathers-whether or not they live in the same house as their daughters-boost their daughters' academic achievement, promote their emotional health, increase their compassion for others, and even bolster the status of women.

In What a Difference a Daddy Makes, renowned psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Kevin Leman seamlessly weaves the latest research on fathering with funny, moving stories about his own parenting experiences. He gives practical ideas and inspiration for fathers and provides specific direction for helping daughters grow into loving, confident, caring adults.

King Me: What Every Son Wants and Needs from His Father

Steve Farrar

Amazon Price: $10.19 List Price: $14.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Moody Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $7.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Family Relationships -> Fatherhood
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Christian Living -> General
Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Wish I Had this 10 years Ago! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

My husband, who does little to nothing on the computer, only dictated this line to me: "I wish i had this book 10 years ago!" He says it is a must have for every dad and requested i find and buy him everything Steve Farrar has ever wrtiten. I did! Specifically, the author breaks down the various personality types and talks about the necessity for each in life and how a dad can appreciate, mentor, direct and affirm his son(s) for the Glory of God and honorable masculinity in general.King Me: What Every Son Wants and Needs from His FatherKing Me: What Every Son Wants and Needs from His Father

Every father should read this 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It is hard to argue with 4000 years of history. This is a must read for any man with a son. King Me helps you to understand how important it is to validate your son and avoid making the same mistakes so many fathers do.

Editorial Review:

Using kings of the Old Testament as character studies, Steve Farrar examines the critical role a father plays in preparing his son to become a godly man. What separated the good kings from the bad kings was a father who made time commitments to mentor his son, by modeling biblical manhood. Do you want your son to become a man of regal character? Then this book is for you!

Father's First Steps: 25 Things Every New Dad Should Know

Robert W. Sears, James M. Sears

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harvard Common Press Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $6.34

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> Women's Health -> Pregnancy & Childbirth -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> General
Subjects -> Parenting & Families -> Family Relationships -> Fatherhood

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Love it! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

We really love this book. It is casual and easy going. No insincere talk or boring chapters. Each chapter is well thought out and has a great point to make. Also it is based in the real world that I live in. The authors understand the issues that normal people deal with in a daily grind because they too have done it. My boyfriend and I read a chapter to each other every night or so before we go to sleep. It has become a very nice bonding and laugh time for us. We love it!

Hubby loved it 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

My husband was a little leery of sitting through reading the "typical" baby books together. But, he really liked the approach these authors took - they pride themselves on trying to be funny, but the information is very valuable. We like the "hands-on" approach they recommend with newborns, and my husband has even marked pages for future reference, especially regarding the hospital stay and the importance of personal contact. He's already recommended this to friends, so I guess it goes without saying that "Yes, we'd recommend this to others." We're posting this review as we put their next book in our shopping cart.

Editorial Review:

In Father's First Steps, pediatricians Robert and James Sears discuss 25 important aspects of new fatherhood, including supporting the mother during labor and beyond, bonding with baby, deciphering baby talk, being a good husband and a good father, and much more. With its emphasis on fathers taking an active role in parenting, this is a book that every new mother-to-be will definitely want their partner to read.

Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter

Sidney Poitier

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: HarperOne Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $11.26

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Actors & Actresses
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Sidney Poitier is one of the most revered actors in the history of Hollywood. He has overcome enormous obstacles in extraordinary times and is a role model for many Americans because of his convictions, bravery, and grace. Poitier reflects on his amazing life in Life Beyond Measure, offering inspirational advice and personal stories in the form of extended letters to his great-granddaughter. Writing for all who admire his example and who search for wisdom only a man of great experience can offer, this American icon shares his thoughts on love, faith, courage, and the future.

Poitier draws upon the perspective and wisdom gained from his memories as a poor boy in the Bahamas, his experience of racism coming to the United States, falling in love and raising a family, breaking the race barrier in theater and film during the Civil Rights Era, achieving stardom and success in Hollywood, and being a diplomat and humanitarian. He reflects on the deepest questions and the significant passages of his life, the virtues that helped him through tough times, and the sense of purpose and history that strengthened him. He emphasizes the importance of the role of faith in a technological age, as well as our responsibility to the earth and future generations. Throughout, Poitier shares stories about the people of courage he has met along the way and the meaning of life in the face of death.

Life Beyond Measure is the perfect book to inspire readers to live the fullest life with integrity, from one of our most respected celebrities and a national treasure.