Quickie review - Ask your father : fifty things your father should have told you but probably didn't by Michael Powell
by tosca on Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Title: Ask your father : fifty things your father should have told you but probably didn't
Author: Michael Powell
Publisher: Robson
Year: 2005
Genre: Non-fiction
Age Group: Adult
Quote: Our fathers teach us how to be men by example; it is our choice whether to follow.
Summary: Michael Powell's very funny and, at times, quaint book is a collection of fifty things he believes a father should teach their son. This book is for the times when your dad is not available - whether by choice or by circumstance - to help you.
Review: I spent quite a bit of time laughing out loud, groaning in exasperation and, at times, cringing at some of the advice contained within this tiny book - but it was time well spent.
Separated into four categories (Style and etiquette, Women, Machinery, DIY & fixing stuff and Being a real man) you'll find every situation covered - from 'How to unclasp a bra with one hand' to 'Mobile phone etiquette' to 'Jump starting a vehicle' to 'Behaving in a strip club.'
Powell brings great sensitivity and humour, and the added bonus of very cool 1950s looking photos, to what is surely an unusual subject. A very funny book that gave me a quirky insight - as both a daughter and as an interested observer - into fatherhood. It always looks easy in the movies and after reading this book I know for a fact it isn't, but it sure does look fun. I learnt something I never knew I needed to know: I wear a bra and that doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that I automatically know how to get out of it one handed. Now I do - although I'm not sure how, as a girl, that life skill will help me at all. If ever.
Further recommendations:
Boys will put you on a pedestal (so they can look up your skirt) : a dad's advice for daughters by Philip Van Munching
No tattoos before you're thirty : what I'll tell my children by Sam de Brito
