Best Books for Dads: Funny Reads and Father-Son Stories
Two shelves for fathers, or for anyone choosing a book for one: comic novels that are quick to read, and stories about fathers and sons. Every book here is in the Tori catalog, and each line says why it fits.
Funny books for dads
1979The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the GalaxyDouglas Adams
Science Fiction · WarmA short, quick comedy about a man rescued just before Earth is demolished, with a guidebook that says Don’t Panic.
1980The Restaurant at the End of the UniverseDouglas AdamsScience Fiction · WarmThe second book keeps the jokes and strange logic going, with a dinner at the end of time.
1961Catch-22Joseph Heller
Classics · DarkA comic World War II classic about a bombardier who would rather not fly any more missions.
1980A Confederacy of DuncesJohn Kennedy Toole
Literary Fiction · LightAn educated, unemployed oddball in New Orleans whose job hunt becomes one misadventure after another.
2017LessAndrew Sean GreerLiterary Fiction · LightA gentle comedy of errors: a novelist turning fifty says yes to every invitation abroad.
2012RedshirtsJohn ScalziScience Fiction · LightA comic parody of Star Trek, set aboard a starship where the junior crew start to notice a pattern.
1997To Say Nothing of the DogConnie WillisScience Fiction · LightTime-traveling Oxford historians in a comic search for the Bishop’s bird stump.
Fathers and sons
1998Big FishDaniel WallaceLiterary Fiction · WarmA son tries to understand his father’s tall tales. A warm fable, and a short read.
1960To Kill a MockingbirdHarper LeeLiterary Fiction · WarmScout Finch grows up in Alabama beside her father, Atticus.
1976A River Runs Through It and Other StoriesNorman MacleanLiterary Fiction · MelancholicTwo brothers, their minister father and fly-fishing in Montana.
1974Zen and the Art of Motorcycle MaintenanceRobert M. Pirsig
Nonfiction · ThoughtfulA father and son take a motorcycle trip across America, with plenty of time to think.
2006The RoadCormac McCarthyLiterary Fiction · DarkA father and his young son travel together, in a story about what a parent will do for a child.
2008HomeMarilynne RobinsonLiterary Fiction · MelancholicTwo grown children come back to live with their father, the Reverend Boughton, in Gilead, Iowa.
2004GileadMarilynne RobinsonLiterary Fiction · ThoughtfulAn aging Iowa minister writes a long letter to his young son.