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Books for Dad

These eight books suit a dad who likes his stories fast, factual or funny. They run from space survival and a cathedral epic to a hiking comedy and true stories, so there is a pick for most tastes.

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  • Project Hail Mary

    Andy Weir

    A teacher wakes aboard a spaceship with no memory of how he got there and has to work out how to save Earth. A good fit for a dad who likes a puzzle.

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  • Unbroken

    Laura Hillenbrand

    The true story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who survived a plane crash at sea and then Japanese prison camps in World War II. Gripping and moving.

  • The Pillars of the Earth

    Ken Follett

    A cathedral goes up in twelfth-century England while rivals and a civil war pull at the builders. A long, absorbing novel for a dad who likes history.

  • A Walk in the Woods

    Bill Bryson

    Bryson and an old friend take on the Appalachian Trail, with blisters, worries about bears and odd scraps of history. Funny for a dad who likes the outdoors.

  • The Da Vinci Code

    Dan Brown

    A murder at the Louvre sends a Harvard symbologist and a French cryptologist chasing clues across Paris and London. A page-turner for a dad who likes puzzles.

  • Man's Search for Meaning

    Viktor E. Frankl

    A Viennese psychiatrist describes his time in Nazi camps and what it taught him about finding a reason to go on. A short, serious gift for a thoughtful dad.

  • The Old Man and the Sea

    Ernest Hemingway

    An aging Cuban fisherman hooks a giant marlin and fights it far out at sea. A short classic for a dad who likes plain, strong writing.

    Books like The Old Man and the Sea

  • Born a Crime

    Trevor Noah

    Noah grows up in South Africa, where his birth to a Black mother and a white father was against the law. Funny, warm and sharp, with his mother at the center.

How to choose

Choose by what he already enjoys. For a dad who likes solving things, Project Hail Mary and The Da Vinci Code are the most gripping. For history, The Pillars of the Earth is long and sweeping, while Unbroken is a true story. A Walk in the Woods and Born a Crime are the funny ones. Man's Search for Meaning and The Old Man and the Sea are both short, and both reward a slow read.

Check the content first. Unbroken describes the brutal treatment of prisoners of war, Man's Search for Meaning is about life in Nazi camps, and The Pillars of the Earth includes violence, including rape. Born a Crime covers apartheid and domestic violence.

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