Recommended Reading for the New Year

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Posted By: PASJD

For anyone who doubts that baseball is the heart and soul of America, read the first section of Dom DeLillo's book "Underworld" which is a literary account (but, as I understand it, faithful to the facts) of the epic 1951 Giant/Dodger playoff game culminating of course in Thomson's home run. It is truly remarkable. Almost as wonderful, and you can find this in various collections of great sportswriting, is John Updike's "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," originally written for the New Yorker about Williams' final game and remarkable home run on his final swing. "Gods do not answer letters" was Updike's explanation of why Williams did not come out of the dugout for a curtain call. Finally, Field of Dreams was a fine movie, but the book (Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella) is much more complex and truly riveting.

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Posted By: Max Weder

And for those who can't carry around Underworld (it's about 700 pages, and is a great book), the baseball chapter is available as a novella Pafko at the Wall, with a nice dust jacket image. It was first published as such (I believe) in Harper's before Underworld came out.

Wishing all a great holiday

Max

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Posted By: T206Collector

of Pafko at the Wall for under $5.00, including shipping, at amazon.com.

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Posted By: Josh A.

May I recommend another book? I am currently reading "Only the Ball was White", a fantastic account of the negroe leagues and many of its well known, in addition to lesser known stars.

I will have to check out Underworld. Who wrote it?

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Posted By: Pete Z.

Don Delillo

I recommend James Thurber's "You Could Look It Up". I stumbled across it in my well-worn Norton's Anthology of short fiction. It's as colorfully written as the deadball era accounts included in "Glory of Their Times".

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Posted By: Jason

Are there any good deadball era baseball books that are still in print? I got a gift certificate for a book store but they had jack that interested me. I looked on Amazon and found a couple somewhat interesting books but I figured I'd ask for recommendations.