Father's Day Is Upon Us!

If you are like many of us here at the Godine office, you still have to find that last minute gift, wrap your present, or mail that card to celebrate your dad on Father's Day. We're here to make that adventure a little easier for you by giving you some fun gift ideas. We have a wide range of books that just might be the perfect way to let your dad know how much he means to you.

Is your dad the handyman in the house? More likely than not, your dad has fixed and worked on many parts of the place you call home. "The Hand of the Small-Town Builder" and "Why We Make Things and Why It Matters" might be the perfect gift for your dad this Father's day.

The Hand of the Small-Town Builder: Summer Houses in Northern New England, 1876–1930
by W. Tad Pfeffer

 Northern New England in the late nineteenth century saw an explosion of what we now call "new home construction." The railroads had opened up the mountains to tourists while steamers regularly plied the coast. The concept of a paid summer vacation was gaining traction, and families, both rich and poor, were eager to rusticate in small villages where, close to nature, they would enjoy the blessings of a salubrious climate. Middle-class families could afford to build homes, and since their budgets precluded "name" architects, the need was answered by native builders, talented craftsmen familiar with the local resources who could draw the basic lines, muster and supervise a building crew, and meet the needs of clients. These weren't the fancy summer "cottages" of Newport or Bar Harbor, but simple structures erected on modest budgets for comfortable summer living. Many were, and still appear, very beautiful, and the best examples are shown in this striking survey of houses built by self-taught architects whose work survives as testaments to their skill.

The men behind the developments were far more than builders; they acted as land speculators, developers, and architects. They ran the typical three-man crews, house-sat over the winter, and were the liaisons with the "summer people" who would arrive in June and leave in early September. The houses they built were sensitive to the local topography and connected to the landscape as masterpieces of vernacular design. From the seacoast and islands of Maine to the hill towns, lakes, and rivers of Vermont and New Hampshire, Pfeffer has thoroughly researched and thoughtfully photographed the best examples. His text is rich with history and commentary. Far more than a pretty picture book, this is a scholarly and richly documented survey of master craftsmen whose subtle but powerful influence on the northern New England landscape is poignantly recorded in these pages.

For more information on this book, please visit our "The Hand of the Small-Town Builder" page. 

Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman
by Peter Korn

The good life that society prescribes – the untram­meled pursuit of wealth and fame, leisure and consumption – often leaves some essential part of us malnourished. We may be capable, competent indi­viduals yet find ourselves starved for avenues of engagement that provide more satisfying sustenance.

Furniture making, practiced as a craft in the twenty-first century, is a decidedly marginal occupation. Yet the view from the periphery can be illuminating. For woodworker Peter Korn, the challenging work of bringing something new and meaningful into the world through one's own volition – whether in the arts, the kitchen, or the marketplace – is exactly what generates the authenticity, meaning, and fulfillment for which many of us yearn.

In this moving account, Korn explores the nature and rewards of creative practice. We follow his search for meaning as an Ivy-educated child of the middle class who finds employment as a novice carpenter on Nantucket, transitions to self-employment as a designer/maker of fine furniture, takes a turn at teaching and administration at Colorado's Ander­son Ranch Arts Center, and finally founds a school in Maine: the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, an internationally respected, non-profit institution.

This is not a "how-to" book in any sense. Korn wants to get at the why of craft in particular, and the satisfactions of creative work in general, to under­stand their essential nature. How does the making of objects shape our identities? How do the prod­ucts of creative work inform society? In short, what does the process of making things reveal to us about ourselves? Korn draws on four decades of hands-on experience to answer these questions eloquently, and often poignantly, in this personal, introspective, and revealing book.
 

For more information on this book, please visit our "Why We Make Things and Why It Matters" page. 

For younger children trying to find the father's day gift that will fit them best, "Pizza in Pienza" will allow sons and daughters to share their love of food and spend some time reading with their dad. 

Pizza in Pienza
by Susan Fillion

What do children and adults love in equal measure? Food! And what food inspires rapture in the hearts of children and adults alike? Pizza! Have your children ever asked where pizza comes from? Who invented the Pizza Mar­gherita? How did anyone think of combining such scrumptious ingredients as mozzarella, tangy tomato sauce, and fresh-baked bread? Thanks to Pizza in Pienza, you and your young charges will have all the answers, in English and Italian, including a recipe for homemade pizza.

Here is the essential history of pizza, told by a charming Italian girl who lives in Pienza and whose favorite food is . . . well, you can guess it – pizza. Life in Pienza is pretty old-fashioned, and our young heroine knows everyone on the street and at the market by name. She comes home from school at midday to eat meals with her family, but in between her snack of choice is pizza, and her favorite place is Giovanni's, where Giovanni cooks pizza the old-fashioned way – in a hot brick oven heated by a wood fire. Her grandmother, of course, makes it by hand and teaches her how to make it too. Her love of pizza even leads her to the library, where our heroine learns all she can about this ancient and ever-popular food, and so do we.

Susan Fillion, author and illustrator of Miss Etta and Dr. Claribel: Bringing Matisse to America, has shifted her attention from France to Italy in this wonderful book for younger readers. While children will love the vibrant illustrations and simple story of this girl and her great love, adults will be riveted by the history and challenged by the bilingual text – for what good is a history of pizza in English only? Read the Italian out loud – Chiudo gli occhi e respiro il suo caldo profumo e il suo sapore – and your mouth will really start watering.
For more information on this book, please visit our "Pizza in Pienza" page.   

 

"The Tyger Voyage" is another great book for a father and children to share this Father's Day.

The Tyger Voyage
by Richard Adams
illustrated by Nicola Bayley

Here, for readers young and old, is the original Tyger Voyage, fraught with suspense and adventure, molten lava and footloose gypsies. In this charming tale, a gentleman tyger and his son set sail in a rather dubious boat into the unknown.  Together they roam across the seas, through jungles, past ice-covered mountains and erupting volcanoes to be rescued at last by a troupe of gypsies.  Eventually they return in triumph to Victorian England with many an extraordinary tale to tell.

For more information on this book, please visit our "The Tyger Voyage" page. 

For dads who like a bit of history and adventure, here are two great examples of Godine books that your dad might love:

The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome
by Roland Chambers

Arthur Ransome is best known for the twelve immortal "Swallows and Amazons" books he wrote on his return from Russia in 1928. From his prose he appears a genial and gentle Englishman, who, like his protagonists, pursued benign maritime adventures. Nothing could be further from the truth. By the time he wrote his masterpieces, the most interesting episodes of his life were well behind him. For Ransome led a double, and often tortured, life. Before his fame as an author, he was notorious for very different reasons: between 1917 and 1924, he was the Russian correspondent for the Daily News and the Manchester Guardian, and his sympathy for the Bolshevik regime gave him unparalleled access to its leaders, policies, politics, and plots. He was also the lover, and later the husband, of Evgenia Shelepina, Trotsky's private secretary, as well as friends with Karl Radek, the Bolshevik's Chief of Propaganda, and Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the secret police. In denying the horrors that followed the Revolution, and in considering Stalin a latter-day Cromwell, he was the bane of the British establishment. Yet his contacts earned him not only the admiration of liberals, both in the U.K. and the U.S., but a place in the British Secret Intelligence Service.

In this biography, Chambers traces Ransome's life back to his earliest childhood, his struggles as a hack writer, and his flight from a disastrous marriage, then on to the decade he spent in Russia during that country's violent, formative years, ostensibly as a journalist, but more accurately as a spy (albeit a sympathetic one). The book's genius lies in Chambers's complete understanding of the Revolution's complexity, the rise and fall of the factions, the extreme personalities who guided it and were often sacrificed to it. He explores the tensions Ransome always felt between his allegiance to England's decencies and the egalitarian Bolshevik vision, between competing romantic attachments, between the Lake Country he loved and always considered home and the lure of the Russian steppes to which he repeatedly returned. What emerges is not only history, recorded by someone who was there to witness it, but also the story of an immensely troubled and conflicted human being not entirely at home in either culture or country.

For more information on this book, please visit our "The Last Englishman" page. 

It’s Only Rock and Roll: An Anthology of Rock and Roll Short Stories
by Janice Eidus & John Kastan

It's Only Rock and Roll is the first anthology of fiction ever published that deals exclusively with the intoxicating urgency, iconic power, and even disturbing underside of rock music, arguably the most influential art form of the past fifty years. In pieces that range from the wildly comic to the achingly poignant, from surreal tales of excess to small moments of human joy and pathos, these twenty-two stories — by some of the most exciting American writers currently at work — celebrate the many sides of rock and roll and its remarkable cultural impact.

Among the many gems here are Lee K. Abbott's wild portrait of a delusional, megalomaniacal rock star on his comeback; Lance Olsen's apocalyptic vision of a rock and roll future; T. Coraghessan Boyle's wryly comic depiction of a recently deceased guitarist trying to find his way to "rock and roll heaven" (via just about every kind of musical heaven imaginable); Kathleen Warnock's wistful tale of a schoolteacher in the 1980s who meets the real Elvis (for those of you who wondered, he is indeed alive and well, and traveling through the South in a beat-up Cadillac); Janice Eidus's hip romance between a fifties doo-wop singer and his high-school sweetheart; Lucinda Ebersole's fine riff on Kafka's Metamorphosis, in which a "nineties guy" named Sammy wakes up one morning as a sixties moptop Beatle; and Geoffrey Becker's moving story of a road trip taken by a guitar-playing father and his teenage son, a journey on which they learn the real meaning of the blues. 

As diverse and exciting as the music that inspired it, It's Only Rock and Roll is both a great collection of fiction and a fresh approach to one of the most enduring, riveting, and creative musical forms of our time.

For more information on this book, please visit our "It's Only Rock and Roll" page. 

If these books don't seem to be the right fit, check out our website for many more fantastic reads!