About this title: The bestselling author of "Moneyball" and "The Blind Side" offers a perfectly frank and mercilessly funny account of what actually happened immediately after the birth of each of his three children.
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: PENGUIN BOOKS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141043197ISBN:0141043199
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 144 pages. Reveals the author's own take on fatherhood, dealing with challenges of new-found paternity: from discovering your three-year-old loves to swear to the ethics of taking your offspring gambling at the races, from the carnage of clothing and feeding to the inevitable tantrums-of both parent and child. (Paperback) read more
Description: Fine. 039306901X NEW/UNREAD! ! ! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing--Has a small black ink mark on outside edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. read more
Edition: Advanced Reading Copy.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780393069013ISBN:039306901X
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Audience: General/trade. Softcover advance proof copy, not the hardcover; thus, no dust jacket, etc. Pristine text, tight binding, a touch of wear. Ultra FAST shipping! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780141043197ISBN:0141043199
Description: Reveals the author's own take on fatherhood, dealing with challenges of new-found paternity: from discovering your three-year-old loves to swear to the ethics of taking your offspring gambling at the races, from the carnage of clothing and feeding to... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780393069013ISBN:039306901X
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. very good condition clean pages fast shipping delivery with confirmation number. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 190 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co
Date Published: 2009-05-18
ISBN-13:9780393069013ISBN:039306901X
Description: New. This is a paperback ARC with same cover and publisher stickers. This book is the same isbn, but is a paperback. New, unread, unused & in perfect condition with no damaged or missing pages. Great Copy. Ships Lightning Fast. read more
Description: New. PLEASE NOTE: All books are promptly imported from the UK using International Priority Airmail. Delivery is typically 5-10 working days. Please do not select expedited shipping. Heavier and more expensive items have tracking number. Professional and reliable bookseller (est.1987). read more
Description: New. Please note that deliveries to addresses in the UK and Europe will be in 4-14 business days. Other countries should refer to Alibris standard times. ISBN10: 0141043199. read more
"It's kind of interesting that two excellent Berkeley-based writers named Michael both happened to come out with a book of ruminations on modern fatherhood (and its corollary, manhood) within a few months of each other. Since we added a second child to our own household a few months ago, and I'm now on (unpaid) leave to take care of him for a few months, this struck me as a good time to check out what two writers I greatly respect have to say on my current profession. (The other book is Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs). To a certain extent, both authors grapple with the state that Lewis articles in his introduction: "Obviously, we're in the midst of some long unhappy transition between the model of fatherhood as practiced by my father and some ideal model."
Unfortunately, Lewis has set such a high bar with his past books (Liar's Poker, Moneyball, and The Blind Side), that this loosely assembled patchwork of journal entries and Slate.com essays ends up being a total disappointment. It's kind of stunning to me that someone with his powers of both analysis and storytelling managed to say absolutely nothing interesting, provocative, or even amusing about being a father in this new age of fatherhood. Instead, he paints himself in the usual self-deprecating colors of progressive fatherhood -- ever the bumbling idiot, an object of dismissive scorn by his partner, etc. Almost every situation reads like a story one's already heard before, and his ambivalence about fatherhood will be familiar to, um, pretty much any male reader who's had a kid in the last ten years or so.
I guess some people might find this "frank" male perspective enlightening or refreshing, but as a fellow guy, I was mainly bored. Maybe I'm the wrong audience for this book -- after all, I was a stay-at-home dad for about ten months with our first child. It may be that his incredibly minor trials and tribulations end up sounding kind of whiny. Ultimately, I wish he could have found a fresh angle to take on the topic of parenting. For example, he knows a lot about incentives, he could have examined his own parenting through the lens of incentives (and arrived at a better version of the book Parentonomics). Or, as in Moneyball, he could have taken a look at the historically dominant paradigm of contemporary fathering and examined why that's undergone a dramatic shift in certain demographics (such as his) over the last ten years or so.
Like I said, I really like Michael Lewis' past books, but this one is a dud. Skip it and try out Michael Chabon's much funnier, provocative, and more emotionally compelling Manhood for Amateurs instead."
"I really would like to give it more stars for the Mr. Lewis honest description of his shortcomings as a father but alas, the writing was not very impressive. It fell flat at many points, the stories were disconnected and it didn't seem like he was learning anything from the episodes he describes. Maybe there should have been a bit more reflection about his feelings, the why's etc. I also notice that even though each section of the book was marked by the birth of a child, the majority of the time he talks about his eldest daughter making think that he'll have a lot of explaining to do or sour grapes to reap."
"I enjoyed reading this book, even if Mr. Lewis is someone that I would probably not get along with--he is too California, and too Yuppy,yep, I said that. But, his honesty and humor are fantastic. And he gets it right. So many of his situations rang true to my own experiences, and sadly, I guess, to my feelings at the time as well. So I now know, that like him, I am certainly far from the world's greatest dad, because when, for example, Jared was born, I was much more pre-occupied with the lack of comfort of the chairs in the room and my inability to sleep, plus only having one book with me, Peter Pan of all books, which was not the best to keep from sliding into boredom delirium while we waited for the little guy to get things started. So, overall, great book, and even better than Moneyball."
"Read mostly on a couple June plane flights, this book by Liar's Poker author Michael Lewis felt truer and more candid toward the beginning, and more like serial magazine pieces written under deadline toward the end, where its grumbling populism seems exhibitionist and forced. That's probably appropriate -- it's fairly clear that the early diaristic entries were observations secreted in some notebook under the duress of paternal supervisions, such that they were. The rest was serialized for Slate.
This is the only child-rearing book I've read cover to cover in my first year of fatherhood. That it contains precious little advice is probably the driver for that."
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