James I. Bond – The Secret Life of Fathers – An Unexpected Guide to Understanding Men and Fathers

For this second edition of The Secret Life of Fathers – An Unexpected Guide to Understanding Men and Fathers behavioral expert James I. Bond collected 101 interviews with fathers of daughters and added advice and questions to be asked by daughters if they really want to know their dads. This quite unique book reveals the answers fathers of various age categories, married and divorced, in all kinds of relationships, gave to these personal, heartfelt questions.

Not only Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., former US President Barack Obama, but also Winston Churchill, current US President Donald Trump, and Paul McCartney showed very different behavior or outed a distinct emotional, conviction once they had one or more daughters around. Quotes and excerpts from the interviews are eye-opening and relatable. Feelings and emotions are exposed, hardly shared anywhere else. Divided into age categories alongside the development of newborn kids (becoming a father for the very first time) up to the awareness of having your daughter as caretaker the book doesn’t read as an average nonfiction work. Snippets of the interviews are introduced, shown, and summarized again. It makes reading superficial after a while. I missed a more readable, consistent narrative, and could really do without the short profiles of the father who threw in a couple of lines. I would have valued lengthier full interviews with perhaps fewer fathers.

About the author

Jim Bond is founder and president of the Father Daughter Project, a collaboration of individuals and organizations that have come together to help improve the relationships between fathers and daughters worldwide. Jim is a behavioral management specialist. For more than twelve years he led Leadership Management Associates of California, Inc., as president. He has also been involved in the regional leadership for the Mankind Project, a non-profit men’s training, and personal development organization.

Most significantly, Jim is the father of four children, a son age thirty-five and three daughters age twenty-give through thirty-three (he is a father-in-training – he hasn’t quite gotten it right yet, but he’s training). Jim and his wife of 38 years, Pam, reside in Thousand Oaks, California.

I got a complimentary review copy from the author in exchange for my personal, unbiased opinion upon reading.