5 books to buy dad for Father's Day @duffythewriter

You could buy Dad the usual pair of socks, aftershave, or set of golf balls for Father’s Day, or you could get him one of these great reads instead!

@duffythewritermafia life book review

  1. Mafia Life is one of those books which got my attention just by the book cover.  Mafia movies and documentaries are my guilty pleasure. The Sopranos and movies like Goodfellas, The 25th Hour and of course The Godfather trilogy offer up old school code, flashy, trashy suits and women, with double crossing heists and dodgy deals. Even if bodies do end up gruesomely buried in cement, or hanging in freezer trucks, there is a certain glamour and allure, but does the life of a real gangster live up to that of popular culture?

Read my review of Mafia Life here

@duffythewriter review of 50 things that made the modern economy

2. 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy

I wasn’t sure how I was going to take 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy as I’m no aspiring economist. However, Tim Harford brings life, humour and a lot of interesting reading.  Each ‘thing’ is carefully chosen, not for its popularity, but for its extraordinary impact on the world.  Items such as the gramophone which enabled music to be copied and distributed on thick, fragile discs and played in wealthy homes during evening soirees.  But, the popularity of the gramophone meant that the old music halls and musicians fell on hard times and lost work.  Why would you trek out to a music hall with no air conditioning (it hadn’t been invented yet), when you could entertain in your home and listen to your favourite songs?

Read my review and some of the other items chosen by Tim Harford here 

grog @duffythewriter

3. Grog

Grog – A bottled history of Australia’s first 30 years by Tom Gilling is the story of an experiment. It could have gone terribly wrong…….and some say it did or that the English should never have come. But somehow a group of disparate and desperate people went to the other side of the known world, struggled to survive and together built the foundations of what has become the amazing multi-cultural society Australia is today.

Full review here!

@duffythewriter barbarian days

4. Barbarian Days

Barbarian Days – A Surfing Life is a stunning and detailed memoir about the life of free spirit, journalist and surfer William Finnegan. The book takes us through Will’s early, awkward teenage years and into adulthood. Whatever is going on in his life, whichever friends and partners drift in and out, there is one constant. Surfing.

@duffythewriter Freddie flint off

5. Second Innings

Second Innings covers not only Freddie Flintoff’s cricket career but as the title suggests, his life after retiring from cricket in 2009. He tells his story with plenty of “northern” humour. In fact, if you read the book with a Lancashire accent, it really is quite funny in parts!

Read more about Freddie here