The perfect gift for parents this Father’s Day: a beautiful, gut-wrenching memoir of Irish identity, fatherhood, and what we owe to the past. “A heartbreaking and redemptive book, written with courage and grace.” –J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy “…a lovely little book.” –Ross Douthat, The New York Times The child of an Irish man and an Irish-American woman who split up before he was born, Michael Brendan Dougherty grew up with an acute sense of absence. He was raised in New Jersey by his hard-working single mother, who gave him a passion for Ireland, the land of her roots and the home of Michael's father. She put him to bed using little phrases in the Irish language, sang traditional songs, and filled their home with a romantic vision of a homeland over the horizon. Every few years, his father returned from Dublin for a visit, but those encounters were never long enough. Devastated by his father's departures, Michael eventually consoled himself by believing that fatherhood was best understood as a check in the mail. Wearied by the Irish kitsch of the 1990s, he began to reject his mother's Irish nationalism as a romantic myth. Years later, when Michael found out that he would soon be a father himself, he could no longer afford to be jaded; he would need to tell his daughter who she is and where she comes from. He immediately re-immersed himself in the biographies of firebrands like Patrick Pearse and studied the Irish language. And he decided to reconnect with the man who had left him behind, and the nation just over the horizon. He began writing letters to his father about what he remembered, missed, and longed for. Those letters would become this book. Along the way, Michael realized that his longings were shared by many Americans of every ethnicity and background. So many of us these days lack a clear sense of our cultural origins or even a vocabulary for expressing this lack--so we avoid talking about our roots altogether. As a result, the traditional sense of pride has started to feel foreign and dangerous; we've become great consumers of cultural kitsch, but useless conservators of our true history. In these deeply felt and fascinating letters, Dougherty goes beyond his family's story to share a fascinating meditation on the meaning of identity in America.

Self-initiation is killing our young men. Without strong mentors, boys are walking alone into a wilderness of conflicting messages about who they should be as men. It's no wonder that our sons are confused about what the world expects from them and what they should expect of themselves. The Intentional Father is the antidote. This concise book is filled with practical steps to help men raise sons of consequence--young men who know what they believe, know who they are, and will stand up against the negative cultural trends of our day. Jon Tyson lays out a clear path for fathers and sons that includes specific activities, rites of passage, and significant "marking moments" that can be customized to fit any family. It's not enough to hope our sons will become good men. We need them to be good at being men. This book shows how fathers, grandfathers, and other male mentors can lead the way.

A personal story of learning to trust our heavenly Father when you feel your earthly father has let you down. Blair Linne’s personal story of growing up without a father at home reflects the experiences of millions. She weaves her personal story with thoughtful theological reflection, inviting readers to learn from God what "father" really means and to trust him, even if they feel their earthly father has let them down. This book will help readers to shift their eyes from what they do not have in their earthly fathers (who, whether present or absent, loving or the opposite, can never be perfect) to what they do have in their eternal Father, who will never disappoint, reject or abandon them. Readers will see that the gospel promises not just forgiveness but also a place in God's family, experienced in a local church, where they can enjoy the fullness of his fatherly joy, care, wisdom, provision, protection and security. Also includes a chapter by Blair’s husband, the Christian hip-hop artist Shai, on his own story of fatherlessness and faith.

Godly thriving leaders are precious and valuable, but developing those leaders is not easy. Many leaders feel stuck, tired and frustrated in their growth and calling. This can change. In Mining for Gold, pastor and master-coach, Tom Camacho, offers a fresh perspective on how to draw out the best in ourselves and in those around us. Cutting through the complexity and challenges of leadership development, he gives us practical and effective tools to help leaders grow personally and develop those around them. Coaching, through the power of the Holy Spirit, provides the clarity and momentum we need to grow. When we get clarity, everything changes. Coaching helps us better understand our identity in Christ, our God-given wiring, and how we naturally bear the most fruit. There is gold in God’s people, waiting to be discovered. Let’s learn to draw out that treasure and help others flourish in their life and leadership.

Bernard Malamud was one of the most accomplished American novelists of the postwar years. From the Pulitzer Prize winner The Fixer as well as The Assistant, named one of the best "100 All–Time Novels" by Time Magazine—to mention only two of the more than a dozen published books—he not only established himself in the first rank of American writers but also took the country's literature in new and important directions. In her signature memoir, Smith explores her renowned father's life and literary legacy. Malamud was among the most brilliant novelists of his era, and counted among his friends Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Theodore Roethke, and Shirley Jackson. Yet Malamud was also very private. Only his family has had full access to his personal papers, including letters and journals that offer unique insight into the man and his work. In her candid, evocative, and loving memoir, his daughter brings Malamud to vivid life.

The daughter of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan tries to make sense of her relationship with her father. “When I was born, my father was already no longer there.” Sibylle Lacan's memoir of her father, the influential French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, is told through fragmentary, elliptical episodes, and describes a figure who had defined himself to her as much by his absence as by his presence. Sibylle was the second daughter and unhappy last child of Lacan's first marriage: the fruit of despair (“some will say of desire, but I do not believe them”). Lacan abandoned his old family for a new one: a new partner, Sylvia Bataille (the wife of Georges Bataille), and another daughter, born a few months after Sibylle. For years, this daughter, Judith, was the only publicly recognized child of Lacan—even if, due to French law, she lacked his name. In one sense, then, A Father presents the voice of one who, while bearing his name, had been erased. If Jacques Lacan had described the word as a “presence made of absence,” Sibylle Lacan here turns to the language of the memoir as a means of piecing together the presence of a man who had entered her life in absence, and in his passing, finished in it. In its interplay of absence, naming, and the despair engendered by both, A Father ultimately poses an essential question: what is a father? This first-person account offers both a riposte and a complement to the concept (and the name) of the father as Lacan had defined him in his work, and raises difficult issues about the influence biography can have on theory—and vice versa—and the sometimes yawning divide that can open up between theory and the lives we lead.