Riot Recommendation

30 Books You’ve Been Giving Your Dad

S. Zainab Williams

Executive Director, Content

S. Zainab would like to think she bleeds ink but the very idea makes her feel faint. She writes fantasy and horror, and is currently clutching a manuscript while groping in the dark. Find her on Twitter: @szainabwilliams.

This giveaway is sponsored by Tank and The Vietnam War: The Definitive Illustrated History from DK Books.

DK has Father’s Day covered.

A visual history of armored vehicles, Tank takes you inside the early vehicles of World War I to present-day models.

A chronicle of America’s fight against Communism in southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s, The Vietnam War: The Definitive Illustrated History explores the people, politics, events, and lasting effects of America’s longest conflict of the 20th century.

Both books are created in association with the Smithsonian Institution.


Let’s hear it for bookish dads! ‘Tis the season, and I don’t know about you, but I’m in a panic trying to figure out what to get good ol’ Dad. A new edition of a beloved Shakespearean classic? A book about all things Grand Marnier?

We asked you to tell us what you’ve been giving your dad and you responded. Here are 30 of your favorites!

Ninth City Burning by J. Patrick Black

The Last Lecture by Jeffrey Zaslow

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Lock In by John Scalzi

The King of Vodka: The Story of Pyotr Smirnov and the Upheaval of an Empire by Linda Himelstein

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick

Plainsong (Plainsong #1) by Kent Haruf

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard

Red River by Lalita Tademy

City of Thieves by David Benioff

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan

A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin

The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

Star Wars Universe books by Various

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver

Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Last of the Breed by Louis L’Amour

The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams

A Natural History of Dragons (The Memoirs of Lady Trent #1) by Marie Brennan

Papi: My Story by David Ortiz and Michael Holley

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Golden Prey by John Sandford

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