Home Game
An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood
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- £1.99
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
Here, with his remorseless eye for the truth, the bestselling author of Liar's Poker turns his sights on his own domestic world. The result is a wickedly enjoyable cautionary tale.
Lewis reveals his own unique take on fatherhood, dealing with the big issues and challenges of new-found paternity: from discovering your three-year-old loves to swear to the ethics of taking your offspring gambling at the races, from the carnage of clothing and feeding to the inevitable tantrums - of both parent and child - and the gradual realization that, despite everything, he's becoming hooked.
Home Game is probably the most brazenly honest and entertaining book about parenting ever written.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After the birth of his first child, bestselling writer Lewis (Moneyball) felt he was a stranger in a strange land, puzzled at the gap between what he thought he should be feeling and what he actually felt. While he expected to be overcome by joy, he often felt puzzled; expecting to feel worried over a child's illness or behavior, he often felt indifferent. Lewis attempts to capture the triumphs, failures, humor, frustration and exhilaration of being a new father during the first year of each of his three children's lives. In one especially hilarious moment, Lewis is in a hotel pool in Bermuda distantly observing his children. When some older boys start teasing his oldest daughter, the youngest daughter, three years old at the time, lets fly a string of profanities at the top of her lungs. The boys retreat and then regroup for a second attack; when they return, she lets fly another string and tells them that she has peed in the pool, causing the boys to go away. All the while, Lewis watches from afar, too embarrassed to claim this youngster as his own but also proud that she has handled herself so smartly. Although Lewis is correct that his fatherhood moments might be more interesting to him than to anyone else, his reflections capture both the unease and the excitement that fatherhood brings.
Customer Reviews
Serial dinner party articles stuffed into a “book”
If you’re looking for the same edge, wit and scintillating detail in The Big Short, Moneyball or Liar’s Poker, move on. This book is built off the back of a few series of regular articles in Slate, and it shows in its lack of depth and missing connection between disjointed anecdotes. Was looking for a bit more nuance to the excruciating highs & lows of being a father and maybe a bit of reflection on what it took to raise is kids from Womb to nappies to teenagers from the perspective of a creative, free thinker. A lot of tropes on display, including his macho views on life, kids and women; including his MTV presenter wife. I’m sure some of these stories kill at his dinner parties - they just don’t necessarily gel together to make a cohesive, interesting narrative or set of observations. Don’t spend your money on this book. Go and search out his other books on topics that he seems far more interested in taking a deep dive into.