“Right now our bookshelves and tables are groaning with the weight of all the Father’s Day flotsam and jetsam that publishers could launch.

An entire years worth of manly books arrived in the last two weeks and there’s way too much to absorb. It’s hard to pick out the pearls amidst the crashing waves of Dan Brown’s Inferno, Baldacci’s The Hit, and LeCarre’s A Delicate Truth. Wait there’s more. James Patterson, Bill O’Reilly, Jeffrey Deaver, Tom Clancy, Ridley Pearson and even Jeffrey Archer are rolling in too.

There is a second set of perhaps more worthy works arriving simultaneously. Here are some highlights in history: Bunker Hill by the reliable Nathaniel Philbrick, Revolutionary Summer by Joseph Ellis, and what will be the best history book of the year, the finale of Rick Atkinson’s on WWII trilogy, The Guns at Last Light. For historical fiction, turn to Paris by Edward Rutherford and Jeff Shaara’s book on Vicksburg, A Chain of Thunder…”

—Roger Page, owner and bookseller at Island Books, Mercer Island, WA

You still have time to pick up a great gift for dad before June 16 at Island Books (or order online and ship directly). There’s a lot more where this came from! For more staff picks, see their great June newsletter.