Customer Reviews

Wisdom of Our Fathers: Timeless Life Lessons on Health, Wealth, God, Golf, Fear, Fishing, Sex, Serenity, Laughter, and Hope

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There's a scene in the movie City Slickers where Jack Palance tells Billy Crystal that the secret to life is just "one thing." I feel like this book is a list of hundreds of that "one thing" you wished you had learned from your father or things that you should teach your sons.

You feel like you're in the garage, or on the ball field, or at the dining room table having a one-on-one conversation with a bunch of great fathers. The great thing is that it's not celebrity wisdom -- but advice from everyday fathers you probably have never heard of. It's almost like you're talking to the man down the street who always seemed to know everything, or the grandfather you never knew.

I also like that the book moves very quickly. You get one piece of advice, then move to the next one. (Which makes it ideal for bathroom reading.) Even if you don't agree with something, chances are that every one or two entries, you'll find something that inspires you, teaches you, or reinforces something you've always believed. What's best, though, is that you'll probably find one piece of advice or one quote that changes the way you talk to your fathers or sons, or even changes the way you live.

Lots of little, digestible bits that you'll wish you could remember. I'd love to give the book to a friend, but then I wouldn't have it as a reference. Mr. Kita's description of a bike-riding trip he and his father went on is a great two-page essay. It's May 2000 and I'm surprised I hadn't heard of the book until now (maybe that's more me than the book). I'm thinking I'll be photocopying bits and pieces of this book for years and passing them on to friends as their various crises hit. A very, very good father's day gift.

Wisdom of our Fathers is chock-full of just that--the hard-earned insights of American males in middle-age and a bit beyond, men who have fought in wars, supported families, coached Little League and run successful businesses. Want to know about love, losing a parent, raising a child, finding a job or getting downsized from one? It's all here--the helpful advice that you wish your own father or grandfather had imparted to you if he had been the talkative type or if you'd ever thought to ask. The best thing about this book--it isn't maudlin or self-conscious or touchy-feely. And you don't have to read it straight through. Just browse through the assembled wisdom on whatever topic is eating at your insides right now and you'll come away feeling better. Maybe you'll even have a clear-cut plan of action. It's that kind of book.

With the advent of industrialism, most of us don't follow the footsteps of our fathers and don't work in the same field. Also we leave our fathers' houses as soon as we are off to college.

This has led to the demise of the tradition of learning from your father where a child would learn from his father as they both worked on the family business.

On a personal side, when my own father was visiting me, he found this book on my bookshelf and liked it a lot. Now he is about to pass away and I am reading this book to get a handle on this situation.

I own this book. I bought it in 99 when they did the first printing. Since then I have given out over 50 copies to my friends families and new fathers I know. I am 30 now, it is 2008 and I just gave out another copy to my new father in law.

This book is still the best book I have read by far and will continue to be until I pass. Joe Kita was an amazing writer for Mens Health but this book is his best work I believe. The insights are amazing and the writing top notch. This book is a must buy.. for fathers, sons, and men in general.

Joe Kita's book is an oyster overflowing with pearls. I harvested this one slowly, because it is clear how precious each one of them is. Wisdom of Our Father's does what other books try to do: it delivers on the promise of its title. Kita's essays about heroic men, deeply personal insights about his own father, and his courageous claims about what he knows team up with beautifully edited and organized information from fathers of all walks of life. And the true beauty of it is that the messages are universal. If you don't get this for your own dad for Father's Day, get it for yourself. Or your mom, wife, friends... Wisdom of our Fathers succeeds. It is a pleasure to read from endpaper to endpaper.

~~ Mark Clement, Author of The Carpenter's Notebook

All around great book. I highly recommed it. I lost my first copy and had to buy another. This and Jimmy the bartenders book and a great combination.

Every once in a while you read something that has a profound inpact on your life's perspective. This has got to be one of those reads. The questions here are those that you never ask but wished you had. I bought this for my father and many other men in my life, because after I read this I realized that, These are the questions that you should ask but few ever do. It's well worth the price.