The Council of Dads
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Bruce Feiler, bestselling author and award-winning journalist, was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. On learning this, he decided to approach six friends who could each provide advice and support to his young twin daughters through their lives should he die. This book is the inspiring story of what happened next. Mixing the highly personal diary of his treatment with the uplifting lessons of these men, Feiler's account is a touching, funny, and ultimately deeply moving tale of parenthood, loss, and love, and will be a blueprint for how others can take his experience and use it to deepen their own relationships with friends and family.
About the Author
Bruce Feiler is a bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and twin daughters.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book after hearing an interview on the radio. The principle of the idea was unique and intriguing. I wondered how the author had managed to bring his idea into reality.
The book arrived and I thought to myself this may be a hard and emotional read. I couldn't of been more wrong. Read this and you will laugh just as much as anything else.
That made it all the more a good read. 5 stars
The book arrived and I thought to myself this may be a hard and emotional read. I couldn't of been more wrong. Read this and you will laugh just as much as anything else.
That made it all the more a good read. 5 stars
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have not read it and probably won't but my wife did and thoroughly enjoyed it; it was for her that it was bought.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
38 reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Take a Walk With Bruce Feiler
4 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I wanted to be a better father after finishing this heart-warming book. Upon learning he was ill with a rare, life-threating cancer, Bruce Feiler, father to twin daughters Tybee and Eden, is faced with how he can show his love to his girls if he ceases to be a physical presence in their lives. His idea was to appoint a Council of Dads, a group of six men from different areas and stages of his life to be his voice and fatherly representative at special times during his daughters' lives. This book is broken up between introducing these men to the reader and recounting periods of the year he spends with his doctors fighting the disease. Personally, as the father of two young girls, the notion of a 'Council of Dads' intrigues me; I just pray I am never in a situation where it may become a reality. Fortunately for Bruce and his family, he successfully triumphed over his cancer and can continue his life as a father. Beautifully written and touching, this is a great book.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Inspiring and full of wisdom
5 May 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
One doesn't need to be struggling with cancer to ask many of the same questions as Bruce Feiler. All of us are just one tragedy away from leaving our children without the influence of their mother or father. I've thought of this from time to time, and wondered if the cobbled-together collections of my personal writing, photographs, and the memories of my other family members and friends would really communicate who I am to any of my offspring. These aren't morbid questions, but an examination of how to leave a child a legacy of emotional fortitude and knowledge, not just the burdens of going through the rest of their life fatherless.
Bruce Feiler addresses these questions with painful honesty. In the midst of his personal tragedy, being diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his leg, he looks for a way to give his twin daughters the knowledge of the values most important to him should the worst happen. By assembling a group of men who know and love him and his family to be part-time father's to his girls. The most impressive thing about this plan is that despite his cancer, he looks outside himself and realizes that the needs of his girls are even more important than his own. That is what being a father is all about, and I deeply appreciated his love and care for his family. There were moments in the book that made me tear up--and I am not the 'crying kind.'
However, the book itself is less about the council of dads that Bruce assembles than it is a narrative of his journey through his battle with cancer. The book is arranged into alternating chapters of letters to his family and friends about the process of fighting cancer and family life, and chapters describing the men whom he has selected to be part of the council. The descriptions of each man are poignant, if narrow. I would have appreciated more detail on each, more detail on why he chose them, and a better overall view of what specifically he wanted his daughters to know, beyond "I loved you deeply." Much of that does get communicated through the book, but it would have been nice to see it captured as part of the narrative about the council members themselves.
A quick read at around 200 pages, this isn't a book on fighting cancer, nor a book on assembling a council of dads. It's really a exposition on what it is to realize your own mortality. Many lesser men and women let that realization turn them into self-absorbed or angry people. Bruce is instead honest about his own suffering, but also continually looking to his family's needs first. The impression I left with was that he was truly a lovely person and an amazing father. I wish him all the best and pray that the remainder of his life will be cancer free.
4/5 Stars.
Bruce Feiler addresses these questions with painful honesty. In the midst of his personal tragedy, being diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his leg, he looks for a way to give his twin daughters the knowledge of the values most important to him should the worst happen. By assembling a group of men who know and love him and his family to be part-time father's to his girls. The most impressive thing about this plan is that despite his cancer, he looks outside himself and realizes that the needs of his girls are even more important than his own. That is what being a father is all about, and I deeply appreciated his love and care for his family. There were moments in the book that made me tear up--and I am not the 'crying kind.'
However, the book itself is less about the council of dads that Bruce assembles than it is a narrative of his journey through his battle with cancer. The book is arranged into alternating chapters of letters to his family and friends about the process of fighting cancer and family life, and chapters describing the men whom he has selected to be part of the council. The descriptions of each man are poignant, if narrow. I would have appreciated more detail on each, more detail on why he chose them, and a better overall view of what specifically he wanted his daughters to know, beyond "I loved you deeply." Much of that does get communicated through the book, but it would have been nice to see it captured as part of the narrative about the council members themselves.
A quick read at around 200 pages, this isn't a book on fighting cancer, nor a book on assembling a council of dads. It's really a exposition on what it is to realize your own mortality. Many lesser men and women let that realization turn them into self-absorbed or angry people. Bruce is instead honest about his own suffering, but also continually looking to his family's needs first. The impression I left with was that he was truly a lovely person and an amazing father. I wish him all the best and pray that the remainder of his life will be cancer free.
4/5 Stars.
30 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Not what I expected
25 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
First off, I appreciate the author's candid and real accounts of how he dealt with such a personal tragedy, as a parent especially, I cannot imagine.
I was captured by the title of the book and the concept..like I said, I'm a parent too and thought it was such an awesome (awesome in the sense of heavy/important, not awesome as in great) responsiblity and idea to choose a council to replace your influence. I was disappointed upon reading to find not as much focus on this as I had expected, given the title. It is a chronical of his experience with his illness and how he dealt with it as things progressed. I have a hard time saying it was as inspiring as I had hoped...but I do think this book is a good memoir that will most certainly reach others in a way that it just didn't me.
I was captured by the title of the book and the concept..like I said, I'm a parent too and thought it was such an awesome (awesome in the sense of heavy/important, not awesome as in great) responsiblity and idea to choose a council to replace your influence. I was disappointed upon reading to find not as much focus on this as I had expected, given the title. It is a chronical of his experience with his illness and how he dealt with it as things progressed. I have a hard time saying it was as inspiring as I had hoped...but I do think this book is a good memoir that will most certainly reach others in a way that it just didn't me.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
