Are you floundering over what to buy for dad this year? I always buy books for my father (my mother too) - and this year is no exception. Just knowing that I can pick something that fits his taste, and at the same time provides him with much needed relaxation, pleasure and intellectual stimulation is enough incentive for me to keep getting the same type of gift each year. If you're wondering what to buy, books are great gift ideas and personalising your choice to your dad's taste is really thoughtful.
If Dad isn't a big reader, then nonfiction is a pretty safe bet. You can buy manuals, guides or coffee-table books on almost any topic. Biographies of people Dad admires or people from historical periods that Dad is interested in are also good. If in doubt, go for award winners. This year's National Book Critic winner for biography was Robert Caro's The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. This year's Pulitzer Prize winner The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss. I think either of those would be a hit with most fathers - even those who don't normally hunker down with a book.
For fathers who enjoy reading, you could do worse than picking an award winner in whatever genre they like. for example, I got my own dad, a sci fi fan, the novel 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson. The book won the 2012 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the plot summary sounds like it's just up his alley (normally I pre-read the books I send him, but haven't read any sci fi this year). Why not tuck in (perhaps instead of a card), a poetry chapbook as well to really stimulate Dad's literary imagination. Imagining the Future: Ruminations on Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions is the book of poetry I co-authored with Carolyn Howard Johnson and can be either purchased as a super-inexpensive e-greeting card or sent as attractive paperback. To get you in the mood, here's a poem from the collection:
Horizon Scanning
Your eyes squint at
glare
wavering between
dreams
imaginary lines
or clear delineations
from this point
it’s not possible to
judge
take a stand from
your degraded platform
speaker’s corner
cardboard soapbox
microwave radiation
blocking your ears
you can shout your
head off
until everyone
gathers
it won’t change
reality
or will it?
28 billion light
years
one edge to the other
there you are
explorer without a
map
scratching your head
the horizon problem
flakes those broad shoulders
Atlas in messy hair
and bell bottoms
every mystery you
solve
invokes another.
There's a poem for every occasion, and the occasion at hand is Father's Day. Though the 3rd Sunday in June is the most common day for Father's Day, it's not the only one. In Australia, for example, Father's Day is the first Sunday in September. In Russia, it's February. My own Father lives in the US, and so I get to celebrate the June date, usually (almost always) by sending books for gifts. My dad likes to read sci-fi, so this year he got Mieville's Railsea and Murakami's 1Q84. Last year I wrote him a poem, as I often do, though the following one is a poem I wrote for another father figure in my life, my grandfather, who ran a boat yard for many years during my childhood. The now defunct boatyard is also pictured on the cover - the image that inspired the poem, taken by my uncle during a nostalgic visit back. The poem provides the title for (and is featured in) the poetry book 
