Photo: Shutterstock © Dubova

6. For Fathers Who Are Counting the Days Until Football Kicks Off 

“It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium” by John Ed Bradley

What is it about Americans’ love of football? The only argument about the most popular sport in this country is, college or pro? And yet, the number of classic works centered on the gridiron are dwarfed by baseball and boxing. “It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium” just might make up for that imbalance in the literary sports world. Bradley, an all-SEC center for the Louisiana Tigers in the late 70s, vividly details the rush of playing big-time, everyone-in-the-state-worships-you, college football. But Bradley was never one to cocoon himself in the Glory Days. He walked away from LSU and hardly looked back. Still, the Tigers have a psychic hold on Bradley that he could never outrun. Inspired by a visit to a dying coach,  the book is a lyrical heartfelt paean to the glories of youth, the realities of adulthood, and how it all comes together in the huddle.

7. For Fathers Who See Fishing as a Metaphor for Life

“Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska” by Lou Ureneck

Is it harder to handle the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness or the rugged terrain of a strained father/son relationship? Veteran journalist Lou Ureneck attempted to do both, at the same time. The recently divorced Ureneck took his graduating teenage son, Adam, on an ill-planned week-long trek down the salmon-flush Kanektok River. Ureneck’s goal was to lessen the impact of his marriage’s dissolution, but Adam’s anger is as ever-present as the bears the “size of church doors.” "Backcast" comes alive in its scenes of disaster, be it a sopping-wet sleeping bag, or the author’s stepfather dropping four month’s pay in a single afternoon at the track. Ureneck is a tremendous tour guide through the breathtaking riches of the Alaskan backcountry, and the far more perilous depths of the human psyche.

8. For Fathers Who Are Salivating in Anticipation of the 2012 Olympic Cycling Race

“Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation” by Aili and Andres McConnon

Cycling dads who are grinding their gears waiting for the Box Hill loop should take a pit stop and read the rousing life story of Gino Bartali. The poor Italian cyclist won the Tour de France twice, ten years apart, the only rider to do so. In the years in-between, he goes to dangerous lengths to save the targets of the Nazis, including housing a family of Jews in his apartment. After World War II, the “chain-smoking, Chianti-loving 34-year-old underdog” wins the race and provides a boost in pride and spirit to his ravished home country. The sibling authors put in ten years of research, including interviewing a Holocaust survivor Bartali rescued. "Road to Valor" will have even the most bicycle-avoiding of book-loving Pops fired up for the London Olympics.

9. For Fathers Who’ve Fought on Fields of Battle, Both Home and Abroad

“Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails” by Anthony Swofford

As the son of Vietnam veteran, Swofford “believed that there existed no grander test for a man than combat.” It led him to the Marines, which led readers to “Jarhead,” his bestselling memoir about the first Gulf War. It became a movie, Swofford became a rich man, unraveled, and embarked on a self-destructive mission to rival his combat experiences. Like son, like father. To try and make sense of his life, Swofford and his dad hit the road for a series of RV trips. The mano-a-mano confrontations between the two veterans (the elder one dying) are raw, tough and scathingly funny. It’s a tough book about tough guys, about trying to reconcile with the past, about not making the same mistakes in the future, and about how a slobbering baby changes the meaning of the Marine Corps motto Semper Fidelis forever: “Always Faithful,” Daddy Devil Dog.

10. For Fathers Struggling to do the Best They Can (a.k.a. The Majority) 

“Father’s Day” by Buzz Bissinger

There is no road map to guarantee a parent will get his children where they need to be. This truth is at the heart of “Father’s Day,” a tough, heartbreaking, and deeply humane work. It’s the story of a road trip Bissinger took with his son Zach, the “borderline mentally retarded” twin brother to Gerry, an Ivy League graduate. Bissinger is raw, blunt, and unflinching about his son’s -- and his own -- limitations. The Bissinger father/son cross-country trek doesn’t fall into the open road equals freedom trope American novelists idolize. Their trip isn’t freeing. It’s a father’s attempt at understanding the incomprehensible, which just happens to be his own flesh and blood. At times it seems like all physical roads in “Father’s Day” lead nowhere, but they end up back where they started. At the intersection of father and son.