If you appreciate someone, you go out of your way to find a special gift. For the most part, I’m off things and on to experiences. Which means books. And CDs. Words & music. As follows…..

 

 

I don’t have X-ray vision, but I’m pretty sure that white-collar Dads who can read without moving their lips will get Scott Turow’s Innocent for Father’s Day. Dads who like sports will get Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open. Dads who have no known hobbies and unimaginative children will get James Patterson.

 

Nothing wrong with those choices. But let’s think different. Let’s give Dad a book that no one else in his crowd is getting. A book that will put ideas in his head, delight his senses and provide him with something fascinating to say. Like these….

 

Forty years ago, a lawyer for the U.S. Attorney in Boston published a 182-page novel that re-invented crime fiction. A reader has suggested that George V. Higgins got his inspiration by listening to hundreds of hours of wiretaps. Very savvy. The book — which is 90% dialogue — gives us a picture of small-time hoods that reads like sad, sick truth.

 

For me, James Salter is the most elegant writer in America. Surgical and swift, he can do more in a sentence than most of us can do in a paragraph. In 1967, he wrote an erotic 192-page novel set in France. It’s about a rich young American and a French shop girl, and you can smell the wood smoke and see the expensive sports car as it turns off the leaf-strewn road into the small French town….

 

In the early 1960s, Henry Ford II decided to build Ford’s market outside of the United States by kicking ass in European competition. His idea: buy Ferrari. And he had a deal — almost. When it fell apart, he had a rival and a mission: beat Ferrari at Le Mans. The odds against Ford were ridiculous. An American-built car had not won a major European race since 1921. Ford would have to build the most technologically advanced racing car in history. You don’t have to care about cars to love this story of crazy courage and over-the-top commitment.

 

 

Peter Temple’s novels are intricate puzzles with violent crimes as the problem to be solved and cops as the characters who must solve them. His people are complex, his world smudged; his books are entirely credible. In “Truth,” a young prostitute is found murdered in a super-luxury high rise that boasts the ultimate in technology — though on the night of the murder, of course, none of it works.

 

Many believe that John McPhee’s account of a single match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner in the semifinals at the U.S. Open in Forest Hills is the best book ever written about tennis. It certainly has drama. Ashe was not the Jackie Robinson of tennis; when he emerged in the 1960s, he was the only African-American player of note in America. Graebner was a dentist’s son and a ringer for Clark Kent. In 146 pages, you’re inside the game and inside the player’s heads at the same time as you get a revelatory portrait of a sport — and a nation — in transition. How great is that?

 

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) studied at the feet of Epictetus (55-135 AD). One man was an emperor, the other a former slave who lived simply and wrote not a word. The value of Epictetus is that he is, literally, a practical philosopher — his concerns are the here and now: reality, life, death. In this short, compelling little book, he has a blunt message that, at its essence, needs just two words: Man up.

 

The best book I’ve ever read about great leadership and effective management is by Colonel Harold Moore, who led the 7^th Cavalry in Ia Drang, site of the first battle between U.S. troops and the Vietcong. In four days of fighting — with the enemy sometimes as close as 75 feet to the American line — 234 Americans died. When it was over and it was time for Moore to turn over command, he requested a full battalion formation. One soldier recalls, "We stood in formation, with some units hardly having enough men to form up. Colonel Moore spoke to us and he cried. At that moment, he could have led us back into the Ia Drang."

 

If Dad liked “Mad Men,” he’s the ideal reader of John Cheever’s stories. Westchester, Connecticut, Nantucket, Beekman Place. Game nights at home, dinners at the club. Adultery. Thwarted dreams. The men wore hats. Everybody drank. Cheever wrote many of these stories in the storage room of his New York apartment. In the morning, he’d dress as if he were going to an office, then ride the elevator to the basement, where he’d hang up his suit pants and start writing. And then, at night, he too would drink.

 

Mark Oldman loves wine — learning about it, talking about it, drinking it. He also happens to have a clear head, a cool eye, an experienced palate. The combination gives his thinking an attractive structure and his writing an evocative sense of the grape and the barrel. And Oldman has a nose for a bargain. If Dad likes wine but doesn’t know why, here’s the ideal guide: simple, logical and painless.

 

A French novel. Of course. But not a new, artsy one. A great tale: Guy de Maupassant’s 1885 masterpiece about the rise and rise of a total cad, Georges Duroy. His trick: using women to make his way to the top of the journalism game in Paris. Georges is a slickpredator, but this is Paris; these sophisticated men and women know what they’re up to. A few women are virtuous; Georges ruins them. Then there is Madeleine, the wife of his friend the newspaper editor, smart and cool and modern — and soon, of course, his.

 

 

I prefer foreign music, ideally instrumental, or, if not, in a language I didn’t understand. That way, the music takes me somewhere — especially if I’m walking in the park, watching the movie of New York from the intimate distance of Shure headphones. But there are CDs out in English I can’t resist, and I don’t want to discriminate against them. So here’s a mixed bag….

 

As a showman, Peter Wolf is right up there with Mick Jagger and James Brown. As a musician, he’s a total reactionary. He doesn’t put out a batch of unrelated songs, he makes what used to be called “albums,” and they take you on a carefully sequenced adventure. “Midnight Souvenirs,” his new CD, eight years in the making, is exciting, flawless and destined for heavy rotation. Seriously: Good luck trying not to love this.

The Garifuna culture in Belize is endangered. If there is justice, these CDs will slow its extinction. The musicisn’t reggae, though reggae is its cousin. It’s not African music, though Africa pounds in its blood. It’s a mosaic of subtle harmonies, led by singers who can tap deep emotions. Not you’ll understand a word of it — you’ll feel the rhythm and just know. Palacio’s release and the CD by Garifuna women are equally great.

Does Dad have a spiritual practice? Me neither. But this CD of chanting — a lot of it in English, a lot backed by a rock band — is mesmerizing. To hear electric guitar playing against tabla, Krishna Das singing those words and then slipping into chant with a chorus — maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s just now, but this experience feels very important to me. There’s so much I want to do in my life, if only I can get out of my way. I feel this music helps me do that.

 

This one’s for the Dads who were English and History majors, who love words and like to tease out the levels of meaning in poems. You can spend time with a Josh Ritter CD as you might with a book that happens to be set to music — you underline, make notes, reread. Of course you can just enjoy it….

J.J. Cale was pleased by Clapton’s recording of “After Midnight.” His pal, producer Audie Ashworth, phoned Cale and said, ‘It might be time for you to make your move. Do an album. So get your songs together.’ He said, ‘I’ll do a single.’ I said, ‘It’s an album market.’ He said, ‘I don’t have that many songs,’ so I said, ‘Write some.’ Three or four months later he called me. He said, ‘I got the songs.’ He drove in. He was driving a Volkswagen this time. He came in with his dog. He played me all those songs." And every one is funky but laid-back Oklahoma magic.

For an instant, they were the American Beatles. But only for an instant. Love broke up, its troubled leader wandered in the wilderness, and his late-life return was too brief. But this neglected masterpiece from 40 years ago is no longer neglected — more of us are hearing, in its blend of psychedelia, rock, and too-smart-for-the-room lyrics — a CD that will never age.

Van Morrison made this breakthrough CD in 1968. It took just four days, cost less than $25,000. It promptly went on best-ever lists. And has never left — this is genius at work. In 2008, Morrison re-recorded it, live, at the Hollywood Bowl. As ever, it’s a demonstration of spiritual transcendence. And it’s not just the words that transcend. The band is open, loose, inventive; this music is subtle as jazz and heart-pounding as rock. And Morrison almost seems to be having a good time — in his phrase, “stepping lightly, just like a ballerina.”

This CD is just plain lewd. It’s got a boogie beat, atmosphere goopier than Louisiana fog, production that emphasizes the beat, molasses-thick lyrics that don’t aspire to profundity — it’s the good times music you’ve been looking for. Late-night transport to a sexy mystery. A worthy successor to Dr. John and John Fogerty.

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant made the CD of the Year in 2007, and nothing I’ve heard since has made me think I overrated it. Cover songs as cutting edge music? A rocker who looks 200 finding the kind of tenderness he used to sneer at? A bluegrass sweetheart who seemed to want to grow up to be Emmylou Harris discovering a wild side? All of the above.

"I want to be a huge star who hangs out in hotel bars/ I want to wake up at noon in somebody else’s room/ I want to shine so bright it hurts…." Teddy Thompson doesn’t really want that, which is one excellent reason he doesn’t have it. What he does have — in addition to Attitude — is talent to spare. Seductive melodies meet self-loathing lyrics meet wry amusement.

Everyone is jagged on Kind of Blue. But the quite possibly cooler choice is “Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud” — “Elevator to the Gallows,” the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s first feature film. Miles: “Since it was about a murder and was supposed to be a suspense movie, I used this old, gloomy, dark building where I had the musicians play. I thought it would give the music atmosphere, and it did.”

 

You’ve got an iPod, and it’s fantastic — what’s wrong with the earphones Apple gives you? Nothing, if you don’t mind the treble sharpened to laser precision and the bass deepened to make you think you’re getting the real thing. Nothing, that is, if you don’t mind putting crappy sound into your head. But you want to hear the instruments as a unit and as separate elements. You want the singer performing just for you. And that means you want Shure phones, the choice of professionals, The Wall Street Journal and yours truly. For just $69, plus $8 shipping.