Synopses & Reviews
This highly acclaimed work is a wonderful collection of beautifully crafted letters on life's toughest questions. Among the topics:
* Strength * Work * Money and Wealth * Love and Sex * Death * Possessions * War and Fighting * Staying Faithful * The Spiritual Journey * The Miracle of Giving * Fatherhood * Aging * Drugs and Alcohol * Travel * The Power of Art * Education * Competition
We all need advice growing up and facing the big issues of life. We all need the voice of a parent or a good friend who has lived through joy and suffering and has thought deeply about it. Kent Nerburn is an extraordinary writer who can be that voice when we need guidance. Letters to My Son, written for his son, Nick, but true for all of us, both male and female, shows us that life isn't always shared in all its richness with those we meet along the way.
Kent shares with us what he believes, and makes us look at the hard questions, but never offers easy answers. Like a wise and gentle friend, he guides us to the truths that emerge when you approach life openly and honestly.
This beautiful new edition celebrates the book's twenty years in print and includes new thoughts on sexual identity, aging, and life in a new century.
Review
In these letters, Nerburns son has been given a gift that few people ever receive from anyone, let alone their fathers; were fortunate to be able to look over his sons shoulder as he reads them.”
— Yoga Journal
These thoughtful, serious essays are delightfully lyrical in tone....The results are always engaging.”
— Library Journal
Nerburn delivers an eloquent spiritual philosophy to fathers in a way that men can easily hear.”
— Utne Reader
Magic...Nerburn bequeaths his son a legacy of wisdom about marriage, fatherhood, infidelity, wanderlust, war, work, aging, and death.”
— Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
This is not a book I intended to write,” begins Nerburn. He was wary of grand moralizing” but when, in midlife, he was surprised by the birth of a son, everything changed.” Nerburn now felt duty-bound to at least try humbly and honestly to pass something good and hopeful into the hands” of his son, Nick. In this quest, Nerburn writes about everything from education, wealth, and work, to suffering, spirituality, sex, and even sports. New to this edition, and in response to readers of previous editions, Nerburn addresses issues of gender and sexual identity. The result is not only for Nick but for the sons of all fathers (and mothers) and for any reader, male or female, who seeks wise and loving insight on the process of growing up and contributing to the greater good.
Synopsis
Essential Wisdom for a Life Well Lived with Three New Chapters IncludedAt once spiritual and practical, Letters to My Son has been beloved by readers from all walks of life, including single mothers seeking guidance in raising a son, fathers looking to share a voice of clarity about lifes most important issues, and young men wanting an intelligent, sensitive, and streetwise companion on the journey toward a worthy manhood. In this twentieth anniversary edition, Kent Nerburn adds to his classic reflections on love, marriage, travel, money and wealth, tragedy and suffering, spirituality, sex, and the true meaning of strength, with new chapters on sexual identity and the difficulty of moving on (from relationships, homes, and stages of life). Unique in its profound simplicity and timeless insight, Letters to My Son is a book to savor and a gift to give to anyone looking for clear and gentle guidance on the big issues in life.
About the Author
Kent Nerburn is an author, sculptor, and educator who has been deeply involved in Native American issues and education. His work has been showcased on The History Channel, on American Public Radio, and in newspapers across the country.
Nerburns books Neither Wolf nor Dog and The Wolf at Twilight have both received Minnesota Book Awards. He has compiled several anthologies of Native American thought, including The Wisdom of the Native Americans, and has produced an updated version of The Soul of An Indian, Ohiyesas (Charles Alexander Eastmans) classic exploration of Dakotah spirituality and values. The History Channel featured his title Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy, and many of his other books have become classics in their fields and been solid sellers for years: Letters to My Son, Small Graces, Simple Truths, and his most recent, Ordinary Sacred.
Nerburn holds a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of California and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. His commentaries on the school shootings on the Red Lake reservation, where he spent several years directing an oral history project, were broadcast on American Public Radio and published in newspapers across the country. In addition to being a program evaluator for the Minnesota Humanities Commission and serving on their selection board, he has served as a consultant in curriculum development for the American Indian Institute in Norman, Oklahoma, and has been a presenter before various groups, including the National Indian Education Association and the Presidents blue-ribbon panel on Indian Education. Nerburn currently serves on the advisory board of Red Feather Development Group, which assists tribes in building straw-bale housing on reservations. He lives with his wife on a pine-rimmed lake near the Canadian border in northern Minnesota.
His website is KentNerburn.com.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Foreword by Richard Carlson
Introduction
Prologue: A Fathers Wish
1. The Shadow of the Father
2. Man and Male
3. Strength
4. Rainaldis Lesson
5. Education and Learning
6. Work
7. Possessions
8. The Miracle of Giving
9. Money and Wealth
10. Drugs and Alcohol
11. Tragedy and Suffering
12. Fighting
13. War
14. The Spiritual Journey
15. Loneliness and Solitude
16. Sports and Competition
17.Travel
18. The Blue Moment
19. Leaving
20. Craigs Lesson
21. The Power of Art
22. On Loving Another Man
23. Women and Men
24. Falling in Love
25. The Mystery of Sex
26. Making Love
27. The Haunted Heart
28. Partners and Marriage
29. Staying Faithful
30. Fatherhood
31. The Burden of Age
32. The Gift of Age
33. Death
34. Embracing the Light
Epilogue: A Fathers Reflection
About the Author