Dear Michael, Love Dad

Dear Michael, Love Dad
Author: Iain Maitland
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Total Pages: 407
Release: 2016-07-28
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 1473638186

'A moving read - honest, funny and sad' Woman and Home 'wonderful, moving, humorous ... extremely poignant' Charlie Mortimer, Dear Lupin 'Iain's love for his son shines through every sentence of this affecting account, as does his guilt. He blames himself for being unable to demonstrate or verbalise his affection ... This is a wonderfully entertaining and moving book, with lessons for every parent.' Daily Mail 'Raising the issue of men's mental health is important ... loving and well meant mix of letters and commentary.' Express Dear Michael, Moving your whatnots et al into the flat has put paid to any improvements in my back. Still, at least it's done now. Your mother is already worrying how you'll cope and is at work on reams of notes on all sorts of matters from how to tel if meat has gone off to washing whites. Smell it and wear black is my advice. When Iain Maitland's eldest son left home for university he wrote regularly to him: funny, curmudgeonly letters chronicling their family life and giving Michael unsolicited advice on everything from car maintenance to women. He never expected a reply. What Iain didn't realise was that away from home his beloved boy was suffering from depression and anorexia. Only much later did it become apparent to Iain and his wife just how oblivious they had been, and for how long. Told through Iain's letters and the unfolding truth of Michael's situation, Dear Michael, Love Dad is a frank and moving account of how we may unwittingly fail our loved ones, despite our best intentions. Above all it offers the hope of reparation and expresses the unbreakable bond between a father and son.

Dear Ashley

Dear Ashley
Author: Don Blackwell
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1614483299

“Dear Ashley” is unique, in part, because it is not written from the perspective of the sufferer, the treatment professional or the medical or psychological researcher. Instead, it may be the first time a dad has shared his perspective on his daughter’s eating disorder battle in print, let alone done so in such an engaging, intimate and heart-warming manner. The fact that Don Blackwell offers that perspective, openly and honestly, is one of many reasons parents and young adults are likely to be drawn to the book’s life-affirming message of hope.

Dear Everybody

Dear Everybody
Author: Michael Kimball
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2013-02-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 162040219X

Jonathon Bender had something to say to the world; unfortunately, the world wasn't listening, and didn't start until Jonathon committed suicide. Dear Everybody is his last will and testament: unsent letters addressed to relatives, friends, teachers, classmates, professors, roommates, employers, former girlfriends, his ex-wife, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the state of Michigan, and a weather satellite, just to name a few, alongside the eulogizing reminiscences of his closest acquaintances. Michael Kimball fills in the story of Jonathon's life through his letters, bringing the reader to laughter and tears in an involving and sympathetically written work of fiction.

Dadland

Dadland
Author: Keggie Carew
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2017-03-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802190383

As her father’s memory fails, a daughter explores his military past: “Part family memoir, part history book . . . Compelling and moving from start to finish” (Financial Times). One of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Ten Best Books of the Year For most of Keggie Carew’s life, she was kept at arm’s length from her father’s personal history. But when she is invited to join him for the sixtieth anniversary of the Jedburghs—an elite special operations unit that was the first collaboration between the American and British Secret Services during World War II—a new door opens in their relationship. As dementia begins to stake a claim over Tom Carew’s memory, Keggie embarks on a quest to unravel his story, and soon finds herself in a far more consuming place than she bargained for. Tom Carew was a maverick, a left-handed stutterer, a law unto himself. As a Jedburgh he parachuted behind enemy lines to raise guerrilla resistance first against the Germans in France, then against the Japanese in Southeast Asia, where he won the nickname “Lawrence of Burma.” But his wartime exploits were only the beginning. A winner of the Costa Book Award, Dadland takes us on a journey through peace and war and shady corners of twentieth-century politics; though the author’s English childhood and the breakdown of her family, and into the mysterious realm of memory. “Brings to mind Helen MacDonald’s H is for Hawk in the way it soars off in surprising directions, teaches you things you didn’t know, and ambushes your emotions.” ―NPR “Astonishing . . . Mixes intimate memoir, biography, history and detective story: this is a shape-shifting hybrid that meditates on the nature of time and identity . . . Tom Carew was a razzle-dazzle character, larger than life and anarchically self-invented . . . For all its vigor and comic zest, Dadland is a careful and tender discovery that patiently circles around a man who spent his life mythologizing and running away from himself.” ―The Observer

Luck and Circumstance

Luck and Circumstance
Author: Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307594688

The acclaimed director of such films as Brideshead Revisited shares the story of his youth and career, providing coverage of such topics as his childhood as the son of star Geraldine Fitzgerald, his relationships with Hollywood elite and the allegations that Orson Welles was his real father.

Dear Dad

Dear Dad
Author: John W. Fountain
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2015-06-08
Genre:
ISBN: 9780981485805

Dear Dad chronicles the impact of fathers or fatherlessness at a time when a national initiative and even President Barack Obama have sounded the clarion call for responsible fatherhood amid a continuing crisis of paternal absenteeism. This at a time when U.S. Census figures show that 4 out of 10 American children are being born to single mothers with the number of unwed births among African Americans rising to 7 out of 10."In some ways, this is a how-to manual: How to overcome; how to succeed; how to live on; how to be a better father; how to forgive our fathers; and, even, how to love, remember, and honor our fathers," Fountain said. "Dear Dad is for everyone who has a father, for everyone who has lost one, loved one, or longed for one, for everyone who happens to be one, and for everyone who longs to be a better one." Contributors to the anthology include: Chicago Sun-Times Editor-in-Chief Don Hayner; former New York Times and Wall Street Journal writer Nichole Christian; Chicago Tribune reporter Lolly Bowean; Stephanie Gadlin, press secretary to Congressman Bobby Rush; Bloomberg News journalist Mario Parker; veteran Washington Post writer Hamil Harris; Chicago native, journalist and documentarian Teresa Sewell; Sylvester Monroe, former senior editor of Ebony magazine; Vincent Allen, pastor and founder of Agape Fellowship Ministries in Virginia; former Chicago Tribune reporter and freelance writer Monica Fountain; Chicago musician R. Darryl Thomas; former Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Rosa Maria Santana; nationally known writer and editor Joseph Kirby; English professor and creative writer Anne Valente; and former Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey.

Mr Todd's Reckoning

Mr Todd's Reckoning
Author: Iain Maitland
Publisher: Saraband
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2019-04-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1912235463

Behind the normal door of a normal house, in a normal street, two men are slowly driving each other insane. One of them is a psychopath. The father: Mr Todd is at his wits’ end. He’s been robbed of his job as a tax inspector and is now stuck at home... with him. Frustrated. Lonely. Angry. Really angry. The son: Adrian has no job, no friends. He is at home all day, obsessively chopping vegetables and tap-tap-tapping on his computer. And he’s getting worse, disappearing for hours at a time, sneaking o to who-knows-where? The unholy spirit: in the safety of suburbia, one man has developed a taste for killing. And he’ll kill again.

Out of the Madhouse

Out of the Madhouse
Author: Iain Maitland
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2018-01-18
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1784506877

Once upon a time, there lived a happy family called the Maitlands. Iain, the father, was a writer. Tracey, the mother, worked at a nearby school. They had three bright and charming children, Michael, Sophie and Adam. It looked like the perfect family life. Until October 2012, when Iain received a message. Michael had been taken to hospital. Years of depression, anxiety and anorexia had taken their toll, and he had pneumonia and a collapsed lung. The doctors weren't sure if he would make it. Told with humour and frankness through Michael's diary entries and Iain's own reflections, Out of the Madhouse charts Michael's journey to recovery from entering the Priory and returning home, to becoming a mental health ambassador for young people. Sharing tips and techniques that have helped them and others to self-manage, this is an essential resource for anyone experiencing depression, anxiety, OCD and similar issues.

Dear Pat Cooper

Dear Pat Cooper
Author: Michael Caputo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2009-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780615318776

It seems like I have been writing this book most of my life. At first I wanted to write about how much I hated my father for not caring about me and my sister, but deep down all I wanted was an opportunity to tell him how much I loved him and missed him being in my life. I tried my best to tell my father that, but he never heard me. Every time we met he found fault with my clothes, my manners, and always the rest of the family. These attacks became part of his persona and a way of not getting too close to me or anyone else in our family He hated us with every fiber of his being and I could never understand why. What did any of us do to make my father keep away from the whole family and go find himself a new one? It never failed; no matter how many times I tried to connect with my father, Pasquale Caputo, all I ever got from him was Pat Cooper the angry comedian.

Dear Teacher

Dear Teacher
Author: Amy Husband
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2010
Genre: Adventure stories
ISBN: 1402242697

"This hilarious collection of letters from Michael to his new teacher comes packed with alligators, pirates and rocket ships, and much, much more. Can Michael's imagination save him from the first day of school?"--Page 4 of cover.