Letters From A Young Father

The Italian poet and film director shares a series of loving letters to his unborn child in this intimate and reflective poetry collection. Becoming a parent changes everything. Fear and love live together. An expectant father desperately want to give his child happiness and safety—two qualities of life that are often at odds with each other. Letters from a Young Father comprises forty letter-poems written by award-winning film director Edoardo Ponti to his unborn child during the forty weeks of his wife’s pregnancy. These poems are gifts, lessons, slices of joy, blueprints for building a life, and insights into how we work, learn, love, and remember.

For years now, it has been the author’s habit to write a monthly letter to his children during their teenage years. The letters cover an amazing array of life lessons that also show an intimate glimpse of one family’s life journey. All families, the same challenges and it is this connection that makes the book endearing and relevant to all who read it. Christian faith and values are highlighted throughout, and stories from the bible are brought to life. “I’ve read hundreds of books on fathering and Letters From a Father is at the very top of the list. This book shares timeless words of wisdom, grounded in scripture from the heart of a devoted father.” David Hirsch, founder 21st Century Dads Foundation & Host of the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast. “Please read this book and perhaps start writing to the kids in your life. Letters from a Father is priceless.” Bob Muzikowski, Founder and President, Chicago Hope Academy

Have you ever felt in over your head? When Eric Peterson became the pastor of a brand-new church, he quickly and wisely turned to his dad for guidance. Eugene Peterson, author of more than thirty books including his bestselling memoir The Pastor and his groundbreaking Bible The Message, here reflects on pastoral ministry in all its complexity--from relationships to administration to the sheer audacity of leading God's people in a particular place. This is Eugene Peterson at his best--lifelong wisdom written with deep love. As the reader, you will glimpse into the tender, witty, personal side of Eugene mentoring his own son. These intimate letters will be treasured by all who read, and applicable to church leaders around the globe. Purchase individually or together with Letters to a Young Congregation as a memorable gift for a church leader or seminary graduate.

We all need advice growing up and facing the big stuff life gives us. We all need the voice of a parent or a good friend who has lived through joy and suffering and has thought deeply about it. Kent Nerburn is an extraordinary writer who can be that voice when we are lost and in need of guidance. Letters to My Son, written for his son, Nick, but true for all of us, shows us that life isn't always shared in all its richness with those we meet along the way. Kent shares with us what he believes, and makes us look at the hard questions, but never offers easy answers. Like a wise and gentle friend, he guides us to the truths that emerge when you approach life openly and honestly.

The fascinating letters of Galileo's eldest daughter to her father Placed in a convent at the age of thirteen, Virginia Galilei, Galileo’s eldest daughter, wrote to her father continually. Now Dava Sobel has translated into English all 124 surviving letters that Virginia (renamed Suor Maria Celeste at the convent) wrote to Galileo. The letters span a dramatic decade that included the Thirty Years’ War, the bubonic plague, and the development of Galileo’s own universe-changing discoveries. Suor Maria Celeste’s letters touch on these events, but mostly they focus on details of everyday life that connect her and her father: descriptions of confections she sent to him; news of his estate, which she managed while he was on trial; a request for Galileo to fix the convent clock. Her prose reveals an exceptional woman and presents a memorable portrait of deep affection between a father and daughter. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

What does it really mean to be a good father? What did your father tell you, that has stayed with you throughout your life? Was there a lesson from him, a story, or a moment that helped to make you who you are? Is there a special memory that makes you smile when you least expect it? After the publication of Tim Russert’s number one New York Times bestseller about his father, Big Russ & Me, he received an avalanche of letters from daughters and sons who wanted to tell him about their own fathers, most of whom were not superdads or heroes but ordinary men who were remembered and cherished for some of their best moments–of advice, tenderness, strength, honor, discipline, and occasional eccentricity. Most of these daughters and sons were eager to express the gratitude they had carried with them through the years. Others wanted to share lessons and memories and, most important, pass them down to their own children. This book is for all fathers, young or old, who can learn from the men in these pages how to get it right, and to understand that sometimes it is the little gestures that can make the big difference for your child. For some in this book, the appreciation came later than they would have liked. But as Wisdom of Our Fathers reminds us, it is never too late to embrace it. From the father who coached his daughter in sports (and life), attending every meet, game, performance, and tournament, to the daughter who, after a fifteen-year estrangement, learned to make peace with her difficult father just before he died, to the son who came, at last, to appreciate the silent way his father could show affection, Wisdom of Our Fathers shares rewarding lessons, immeasurable gifts, and lasting values. Heartfelt, humorous, engaging, irresistibly readable, and bound to bring back memories of unforgettable moments with our own fathers, Tim Russert’s new book is not only a fitting companion to his own marvelous memoir, but also a celebration of the positive qualities passed down from generation to generation.

“I’ll croak before I write ads or sell bonds—or do anything except write.” James Agee’s father died when he was just six years old, a loss immortalized in his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, A Death in the Family. Three years later, Agee’s mother moved the mourning family from Knoxville, Tennessee, to the campus of St. Andrew’s, an Episcopal boarding school near Sewanee. There, Agee met Father James Harold Flye, who would become his history teacher. Though Agee was just ten, the two struck up an unlikely and enduring friendship, traveling Europe by bicycle and exchanging letters for thirty years, from Agee’s admission to Exeter Academy to his death at forty-five. The intimate letters, collected by Father Flye after Agee’s death, form the most intimate portrait of Agee available, a starkly revealing account of the internal and external life of a tortured twentieth-century genius. Agee candidly shares his struggles with depression, professional failure, and a tumultuous personal life that included three wives and four children. First published in 1962, Letters of James Agee to Father Flye followed the rediscovery of Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and the posthumous publication of A Death in the Family, which won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize and became a hit Broadway play and film. The collection sold prolifically throughout the 1960s and ’70s in mass-market editions as a new generation of readers discovered the deep talents of the writer Dwight Macdonald called “the most broadly gifted writer of our American generation.”

"...the glory of children are their fathers." --Proverbs 17:6 Father's Day is a very special day for fathers and their children. Unfortunately, it only comes around once a year. On this day, fathers are recognized and honored by those who love them the most--their children. However, in my opinion, fathers should be honored and celebrated every day of the year. Fathers who choose to stay in the lives of their children and who help to improve the lives of their children should not just be honored on one day but on every day... May I encourage you not to take your father for granted. Show love and appreciation to him while you are together. And remember that father's day is not just one day out of the year but should be celebrated every day! -Daniella Whyte, from the Introduction

How do young black fathers relate to their children, as well as to their own fathers? How do they see — and play — their roles in both family and community? These are some of the big questions this timely, accessible book addresses. Written by both popular commentators and those who have experienced the issues firsthand, Be a Father to Your Child begins with a frank discussion of how family formation has changed since the 1960s, especially for communities of color. Individual selections then flesh out historical, sociological, and cultural contexts, examining the impact of welfare, child support, criminal justice, and employment policies on young men of color. In addition to this analytical material, the book presents more personal, anecdotal pieces — including poems and lyrics, short stories, and interviews — that form a powerful composite portrait of the challenges facing modern communities of color, and how to overcome them.

In 1950, V. S. Naipaul travelled from Trinidad to England to take up a place at Oxford University. Over the next few years, letters passed back and forth between Naipaul and his family – particularly his beloved father Seepersad, but also his mother and siblings. The result is a fascinating chronicle of Naipaul’s time at university; the love of writing that he shared with his father and their mutual nurturing of literary ambition; the triumphs and depressions of Oxford life; and the travails of his family back at home. Letters Between a Father and Son is an engrossing collection continuing into the early years of V. S. Naipaul’s literary career, touching time and again on the craft of writing, and revealing the relationships and experiences that formed and influenced one of the greatest and most enigmatic literary figures of our age. ‘Rare and precious . . . if any modern writer was going to breathe a last gasp into the epistolary tradition, it was always likely to be V. S. Naipaul’ New Statesman