This week's book:
The Iowa Baseball Confederacy
By W. P. Kinsella
This is super late, but by total accident this post is right after the first day of my son's baseball season. His first practice apparently went really well; hopefully he has a better season this year with his new bat.
Baseball has always been my favorite sport. I have always loved watching it on TV and especially live games. When my son (and now daughter) found that they wanted to try baseball out, I was thrilled. The game is magical and lyrical, with the team almost doing a dance with batting, catching and pitching. A night game game with a chill in the air under the lights or covered in sweat during a double header baseball is just amazing.
I read this book because of a reading challenge I was doing. One of the prompts was to read a book about a spring sport, which baseball clearly is. The novel was written by the same man that wrote Shoeless Joe, the book the film Field of Dreams was based on. I read the novel I think in High School if I remember correctly, and enjoyed it alright. If I'm completely honest, I think the film is much better. The author has amazing imagery and quotes about baseball, but his actual ability to have a plot is kind of lacking.
Both of the books are based in Iowa, where my whole family is from, and has a lot about Hawkeye history. The author is a veteran of the Iowa Writer's Workshop (one of the coolest places to come and work on your manuscript). This book still has the element of fantasy that Shoeless Joe has. This novel is about a baseball game from the turn of the century that lasted for thousands of innings over weeks, whereas Shoeless Joe a magical baseball field in a cornfield in Iowa. If you are a fan of baseball I would check it out.
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