What do you get the man who (says he) has everything? With Father鈥檚 Day now one week away?
A thoughtfully chosen book is always a good choice, and your neighborhood bookstore has plenty of recently released titles to choose from. Here are some Father鈥檚 Day recommendations from volunteers now planning the next Tucson Festival of Books:
鈥淲ar on the Border鈥 by Jeff Guinn. One of America鈥檚 best-read historians, Guinn loves telling tales about (in)famous celebrities. His previous projects featured Bonnie and Clyde, Charles Manson and Jim Jones. This time, Guinn brings us Pancho Villa, whose bloody raid on Columbus, New Mexico, triggered a major response from the U.S. government. Who hasn鈥檛 heard of Pancho Villa? Who really knows why? 鈥 Bruce Dinges
鈥淣辞颈蝉别鈥 by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein. Another book released last month, 鈥淣辞颈蝉别鈥 offers a scientific look at the vagaries that influence our decision-making. How can two judges review the same set of facts and arrive at totally divergent verdicts? How can two lifelong friends have such different views of racial justice? Kahneman and Sunstein call our external influences 鈥渘oise,鈥 and report how noise both impacts and impairs the decisions we make. 鈥 Jennifer Casteix
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鈥凌颈诲驳别濒颈苍别鈥 by Michael Punke. Punke鈥檚 first book since 鈥淭he Revenant鈥 is a novel based on real people and real events in the Old West. Specifically, it explores the civil war that followed the Civil War: the battles fought between Native America and the U.S. Army. Punke begins with a vivid retelling of the Battle of Little Big Horn. He then steps back to examine the issues and strategies that brought the participants to the battlefield that day. 鈥 Lynn Wiese Sneyd
鈥淗ymns of the Republic鈥 by S.C. Gwynne. The final year of the Civil War featured events whose aftershocks rattle America to this day. Gwynn explores the recruitment of 180,000 former slaves into the Union Army; the guerilla bloodshed in Missouri and Kansas; the rise of Clara Barton; Sherman鈥檚 March to the Sea; the 1864 election; and the murder of President Lincoln. That鈥檚 a lot. 鈥 Abby Mogollon
鈥淣ine Nasty Words鈥 by John McWhorter. Do you know our swear words come from a different part of our brain than the rest of our vocabulary? McWhorter does. He鈥檚 one of America鈥檚 leading linguists and in this unusual book he explores the reasons why language we find shocking is so startling, so powerful 鈥 and so fun to use. 鈥 Tricia Clapp
鈥淭he Groundbr别补办颈苍驳鈥 by Scott Ellsworth. This timely book recounts the destruction of the Greenwood Section of Tulsa by a white, racist mob 100 years ago. The entire neighborhood was bombed, looted and burned to the ground. One hundred seventy-six residents died. How could it have happened? Why did so few of us learn about it in school? Ellsworth had the same questions, and he was raised in Tulsa. 鈥 Jessica Braithwaite
鈥沦颈诲别肠辞耻苍迟谤测鈥 by John Branch. An admiring critic once said Branch writes sports the way Lyle Lovett writes country music, featuring ordinary people who do extraordinary things. This is a collection of 20 such stories Branch has written for the New York Times. He will discuss the book and some of its featured subjects in an online conversation with Joe Draper on July 14, at 3 p.m. It will be presented by the Tucson Festival of Books at . 鈥 Nicolas Dawidoff
鈥淭he Unreasonable Virtue of Fly Fishing鈥 by Mark Kurlansky. This is a book about fishing that isn鈥檛 a book about fishing at all. To be clear, Kurlansky has been a fisherman his entire life. But this fresh, revealing memoir reflects on the life lessons he has learned from fish 鈥 and the many things that make the pursuit such a special part of his life. 鈥 Abby Mogollon
鈥淲inter Counts鈥 by David Heska and Wanbli Weiden. If dad prefers fiction, 鈥淲inter Counts鈥 is a thriller about vigilante justice on a Native American reservation in South Dakota. It features Virgil Wounded Horse, who is hired to track down the source of a heroin influx killing young people on the reservation. 鈥 Tricia Clapp
鈥How to Grill Everything鈥 by Mark Bittman. This cookbook isn鈥檛 new, but you can never go wrong with a cookbook on Father鈥檚 Day. Many men love to barbecue. All of us enjoy eating barbecue. It sounds like a win-win gift to us. 鈥 Lynn Wiese Sneyd
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