Gift-Giving this Father's Day
Father’s Day is this Sunday 1 September, and here our staff talk about gift-giving.
Emily Harms on picking gifts for her partner
my
dad the most appropriate gift - a copy of
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
and
Leonard Cohen: The Music & the Mystique
as he’s
very
excited about seeing him again now that he’s returning to Melbourne early next year.
But then this morning, my nearly 5 year old daughter whispered to me ‘Mum, look at the card I made dad at kindy yesterday’. (She’d hidden it in her bag when he had picked her up from kinder and put it in her wardrobe to show me.) Of course my bloke won’t be expecting gifts - love and hugs from his gorgeous kids usually cuts it - but a few gifts did come to mind on seeing that card. So when I got into work this morning, I went into the Carlton shop and bought My Dad Still Thinks He’s Funny.
We’d bought him My Dad Thinks He’s Funny a couple of years ago and he’d absolutely LOVED it - including every corny joke inside (which I’m sure he’d already told the kids). He will no doubt get a real buzz out of reading the sequel to the kids over and over - and will think he’s funny every time he tells the same old jokes from the book to them!
While I was in the shop, I also couldn’t resist buying the compilation of Rennie Ellis’ photography and social history Decade: 1970-1980. We’d been to an exhibition of Ellis’ work a few years back at NGV’s Ian Potter Centre and were absolutely captivated by his ability to capture Australian cultures and subcultures throughout the 70’s. Ellis conveys a particularly fascinating time in Australia’s history, providing a visual feast for all and I’m sure this book will make the perfect gift for a bloke who particularly enjoys reminiscing on their hey days in the 70s…
Bronte Coates on watching her brothers become dads
Over the last few years two, of my four brothers, have become dads. I mean this in both a literal sense and a wow-my-brother-is-turning-into-our-father. Both of them play golf and make exactly the kind of jokes you’d expect. They’ve adopted new vocabularies that include words like supplements and breast pumps. Once I made myself a tea at one of their homes only to discover a distinctly fishy aroma - the only milk in their house was one for toddlers that included fish oil. ‘You get used to it after a while’, my brother told me drinking his own tea at leisure.
Now when I visit these brothers and their families, they seem mellow, less inclined to mock me or my hairstyle. They’re more peaceful, or perhaps they are just tired. I remember how soon after his daughter was born, my oldest brother and I were hanging out. He was holding this tiny baby, sniffing her bottom, patting her back, bouncing her gently. She started crying and he commented that, ‘It must be hard to be a baby. You can’t communicate anything you’re feeling except by tantrums.’
When it comes time for gift-giving I swing between buying ones for the family as a whole - such as a Cirque Du Soleil DVD, and ones just for them - such as a new fantasy book like Game of Thrones. (My brother went on to read the whole series which definitely made that gift a success.) This year my shortlist includes Lloyd Jones’ memoir, A History of Silence, Paul Kelly’s album, Conversations With Ghosts and a Charles Portis novel I’m reading called The Dog Of The South.
Belle Place on book-swapping with her father
, or a book that documents our own social history, like Rennie Ellis’s
.
This year, I like the idea of gifting him something he might never take from the shelf himself. I’m thinking HHhH – Laurent Binet being at the MWF reminded me of it. My dad likes historical fiction, but it’s unusual in its structure, and I’m really interested to see if he likes the way Binet plays with fiction and truth – plus I think it’s a thrilling story. Father’s Day falls around the same time as my birthday, so I’m looking forward to this weekend, to the book swap, and finding out what dad thinks I should be reading, too.
If you’re looking for gift ideas