The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me » (Unabridged, 4 CDs , 5 Hrs)

Both funny and intellectually rigorous, Bruce Feiler has applied his investigative spirit to religion, Japan, the circus, country music and assorted other topics. His personal accounts of various cultural forays are always illuminating, if you can keep up.

Bestselling author Bruce Feiler was a young father when he was diagnosed with cancer. He instantly worried what his daughters' lives would be like without him. Three days later, he came up with a stirring idea to reach out to six men from all the passages in his life, and ask them to be present in the passages in his daughters' lives. And he would call this group "The Council of Dads."

"I believe my daughters will have plenty of opportunities in their lives," he wrote to these men. "But they may not have their dad. Will you help be their dad?"

The Council of Dads is the inspiring story of what happened next. Feiler introduces the men in his Council and captures the life lesson he wants each to convey to his daughtersÂ-how to see, how to travel, how to question, how to dream. He mixes these with an intimate, highly personal chronicle of his experience battling cancer while raising young children.

The Council of Dads is a touching, funny, and,...

The Washington Post - Michael Lindgren

…Feiler's conversations with his potential stand-ins are candid and moving. The Council of Dads exemplifies the mysterious process by which bad news can alter our perspective and reorder our priorities, and it celebrates the ever-expanding level of emotional intimacy that men are increasingly free to engage.