Kinsella, W.P.

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Block That Simile!
Shoeless Joe- a paid avertisment W.P kinsella
Loved it
That voice in your head says: read this book
You'd Be Amazed

Shoeless Joe
W. P. Kinsella
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa: Stories

ASIN: 0395957737

Amazon.com

W. P. Kinsella plays with both myth and fantasy in his lyrical novel, which was adapted into the enormously popular movie, Field of Dreams. It begins with the magic of a godlike voice in a cornfield, and ends with the magic of a son playing catch with the ghost of his father. In Kinsella's hands, it's all about as simple, and complex, as the object of baseball itself: coming home. Like Ring Lardner and Bernard Malamud before him, Kinsella spins baseball as backdrop and metaphor, and, like his predecessors, uses the game to tell us a little something more about who we are and what we need.

Book Description

"If you build it, he will come." Them mysterious words of an Iowa baseball announcer lead Ray Kinsella to carve a baseball diamond in his cornfield in honor of his hero, the baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson. This is a book "not so much about baseball as it is about dreams, magic, life, and what is quintessentially American," said the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Download Description

He went to Canada in the 1960's to avoid the draft. Now, back in the USA, he has a vision: build a ballpark in an Iowa cornfield "if you a build it they will come." Two who do are the tragic ballplayer, Joe Jackson and the lead's father. This affecting novel was the basis of the FIELD OF DREAMS, Kevin Costner's landmark 1980's film.

Customer Reviews:

Block That Simile!.......2007-05-09

This is quite possibly the most inept piece of fiction ever published. I would recommend it for unintended laughs, however. Buy it, get out your highlighter and mark your favorites from the hundreds of laughable similes. Then, pull the book out like a funeral director at a christening, and enjoy. The whole world will seem as bright as a runaway lawnmower.

Also, highly recommended for high school English teachers who need perfect specimens of terrible writing.

PS: Who would have thought a fictional J.D. Salinger could possibly have come across so deadly flat? But then, who would have thought this book would find a publisher?

Shoeless Joe- a paid avertisment W.P kinsella.......2006-11-15

A man, Ray Kinsella is a baseball loving fan from Iowa. At a game three years ago he heard the words "If you build it he will come" from the anouncer outloud and Ray's life changed. Now he lives with his wife Anne and her daughter Karin and is comfronted by his baseball hero Shoeless joe only he was a ghost. This book is great for anyone who loves sports stories and is a baseball fanatic. Ray goes around Iowa meeting strange people, watching games and following his dream. Thing can get a little writer named Jerry who is the most gloomy person and thinks Ray is mentaly challenged. Also is has a greek cook who points a razor at Ray and says it's a gun. The book does have soom subtle moments like teaching his daughter about baseball or when Shoelees Joe talks to Ray about his life. This book has a wonderful story line and is a novel that will make you keep on reading. So get your copy today and if you liked that book read some of the other books written by W.P Kinsella.

(This book was a fake paid advertisment)

Loved it.......2006-09-27

I REALLY enjoyed this book. I thought the movie incorporated most of the good parts in the book. There were some character changes and some additional characters in the book, but I don't think they hurt the story line by trimming here and there. I read the book after seeing the movie - I always wondered what the movie had been based on. I love baseball, and I think the book was great.

That voice in your head says: read this book.......2006-08-14

If you're a dyed-in-the-wool baseball fan, you'll probably relate well to "Shoeless Joe". It's the tale better known as "Field of Dreams," in which a wistful young farmer carves a baseball diamond into his financially strapped corn field in Iowa. The voice which tells him to do it also sends him to New England to fetch the reclusive JD Salinger, then up to northern Minnesota to connect with an aging doctor whose major league career amounted to just a single inning with the NY Giants. Anyway, it doesn't make much sense. But that's the beauty of it. Devotion to baseball--manic devotion to baseball--is irrational at best. Diehard baseball fans will have an easier time surrendering to Kinsella's version of reality than the casual fan. But regardless of your persuasion, you'll have to suspend belief for a few hundred pages in order to enjoy this quirky little book.

I have to confess that I read "Shoeless Joe" twice, and the first time through was a lot more fun than the second. The writing is solid through and through. But the sappiness of the story grated on me the second time around, perhaps because I knew the outcome, or because I had aged 15 years. In any case, those who have seen the movie might enjoy reading this book. But I suspect that the greatest enjoyment comes to those who have yet to discover the story. And it probably wouldn't hurt if you had more than a passing interest in the game of baseball.

You'd Be Amazed.......2006-05-24

This book really caught my attention. As soon as i saw the title "shoeless joe" I knew it was going to be ok, but it turned out to be more than just ok its great. I, myself don't usually read books but i had to for a book report and I'm glad that i did read this book. Its really hard for me to wan to read a book and this one did have enough great thing. Have such suspense in the book not knowing if he will ever find out what everything meant. I recommend this book to everyone. You wont be disappointed.

Selected Shorts: Baseball (Selected Shorts series)

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Selected Shorts: Baseball (Selected Shorts series)

Selected Shorts: Baseball (Selected Shorts series)
W. P. Kinsella , T. Coraghessan Boyle , and Roger Angell
Manufacturer: Symphony Space
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 0971921849

Book Description

Acclaimed actors from stage and screen perform tales from the baseball diamond in this newest, three-CD collection of stories from Selected Shorts. Both classic and contemporary works are featured, including a heartwarming piece on some fan habits during a players' strike, by W.P. Kinsella, and a sidesplitting account from T. Coraghessan Boyle of the longest game ever. Many of the readings were recorded during a historic broadcast of the show hosted by the late, beloved baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. From the first pitch to the final out, these short stories are a lively listening experience.

Customer Reviews:

Selected Shorts: Baseball (Selected Shorts series).......2007-01-04

This was absolutely wonderful! I have purchased several as gifts also and have heard rave reviews from all.

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Wonderful Baseball Fantasy
Mind-boggling
Another Classic Baseball Novel
Very Disappointed
One of the best american novels

The Iowa Baseball Confederacy: A Novel
W. P. Kinsella
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0618340807

Book Description

Bearing W.P. Kinsella's trademark combination of "sweet-natured prose and a richly imagined world" (Philadelphia Inquirer), The Iowa Baseball Confederacy tells the story of Gideon Clark, a man on a quest. He is out to prove to the world that the indomitable Chicago Cubs traveled to Iowa in the summer of 1908 for an exhibition game against an amateur league, the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. But a simple game somehow turned into a titanic battle of more than two thousand innings, and Gideon Clark struggles to set the record straight on this infamous game that no one else believes ever happened.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful Baseball Fantasy.......2006-03-11

If you love baseball, fantasy, and especially the Chicago Cubs you can't help but love Kinsella's delightful tale. As another baseball season gets ready to start this book will get you into the right frame of mind. Similar in style to the wonderful "The Year It Finally Happened."

Mind-boggling.......2004-09-25

What's so mind-boggling is the drugs that Kinsella must have been smoking in order to come up with this one. Now read this description of the book:
An albino, like his dead father, is convinced that a 3000 inning game took place 80-some years ago between the Chicago Cubs and the Iowa baseball Confederacy All-stars. The albino is somehow able to go back in time and witness the game (as a matter of fact the local hicks use him as a good-luck charm and rub his head before stepping to the plate, allowing him to remain in the dugout) in all its glory. Then Teddy Roosevelt shows up and takesa few swings, telling the pitcher not to patronize him after throwing an easy pitch, and then making a cheap pun about the bat being a "big stick." Soon after that Leonardo DaVinci showed up in a balloon and watches a few innings. Shortly thereafter a giant flood occurs and some of the players spontaeneouly throw themselves in the waters. To fill the vacancies, a statue of an angel plays in the outfield.

There, I think I've covered all the bases, so to speak. Oh, I forgot the Native America named "Drifting Away" who is messing with the reality of this county and eventually plays in the game too.

Look, I don't like to be so completely negative, but the book was ludicrous. To make matters worse, it throws in a fairly gratuitous love interest who is the spitting image of the Albino protagonist's mother (kinda Fruedian) and more seemingly random things than could possibly be mentioned in this review. And bear in mind, reading these things, that I'm a baseball fan.
3/10

Another Classic Baseball Novel .......2004-09-09

W.P. Kinsella is one of my all-time favorite writers, and this is one of his better novels. If you've seen the movie, "Field of Dreams," or read his book "Shoeless Joe," which was the basis for the movie, you know what to expect from Kinsella.

His stories of baseball and magic are written for readers with vivid imaginations. This is a story of a researcher looking for proof of an old league that nobody else can remember. He somehow ends up at a never-ending exhibition game between the 1908 Cubs and the all-stars from this Iowa league.

As usual with Kinsella, the book is about a lot more than baseball. If you're the type of reader who can accept a story that seems totally unbelievbale, and if you like baseball, you should try this one. If you like it, he's written quite a few other books and I haven't found a bad one yet.

Very Disappointed.......2004-06-01

I just finished my sophomore year of college. I have had the Iowa Baseball Confederacy in my room forever but I waited until the semester was over to start reading it because I wanted to give it full attention. I read Shoeless Joe a couple of years ago and it is still my all-time favorite book. I went into this one with high expectations. However, they were not met. I just didn't like the characters, didn't care about them. The Plot seemed like a bunch of short stories together that made no sense.

Magic is a key element in Kinsella stories. However, this one just seemed too fantastic. I don't know how players coming back from the dead in Shoeless Joe seemed more realistic than the time-travel, magic Indian, and the obsession with the game in the Iowa Baseball Confederacy, but it just does.

The book is worth a read if you're a Kinsella Fan but don't waste your time otherwise. Read Shoeless Joe again.

One of the best american novels.......2004-05-19

Its pretty difficult to put this book in a genre. Sports novel? There's a 2,000 inning game in here. Mythology? The characters seem plenty real to me. Lets just say that it belongs in the genre of books that defy classification.
I'm not sure whats so great about this book. I guess its just the fact that when Kinsella says there was this totally fantastic event, you believe him. Who knows why? The man is an amazing writer, and this proves it. By the way, if you are a teacher by all means, assign this book to your class instead of the tired old 19th century british class warfare novel.

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Readers Beware: Baseball Bypassed
simply astounding
Box Socials mediocre, plotless
I don't want to be rude but...
Know T. R. Pearson's Examples or Miss Kinsella's Model Here!

Box Socials
W.P. Kinsella
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Shoeless Joe

ASIN: 0345382536
Release Date: 1993-03-02

Book Description

Here's the story of how Truckbox Al McClintock, a small-town greaser whose claim to fame was hitting a baseball clean across the Pembina River, almost got a tryout with the genuine St. Louis Cardinals -- but instead ended up batting against Bob Feller of Cleveland Indian Fame in Renfrew Park, Edmonton, Alberta.

Customer Reviews:

Readers Beware: Baseball Bypassed.......2002-01-08

W.P. Kinsella mixes baseball with small town nostalgia too bake a cake not fit to eat in Box Socials. Kinsella's lure of a promising baseball star, Truckbox Al McClintock, leads readers into believing they are reading a book about baseball, when in fact the sport takes a back seat to the stories and events of everyday people in the Six Towns, a small area in Alberta not even on the map. No one of any significance has ever been produced from the Six Towns and when Truckbox Al hits five homeruns into the Pembina River, one clear across, the town members grow excited that he may bring them fame. In the meantime (about four-fifths of the book), narrator Jamie O'Day takes us on a journey to visit this small town area during World War II, sharing its occurrences along the way.
Box Socials intends to pull the reader in to the nostalgia of small town life in 1940s Alberta with a lack of phones, a one-room schoolhouse, and box socials where box lunches are auctioned off so a boy can share lunch with a girl. However, the routine and regularity of the town soon become redundant and hackneyed. The Bjornsen Brothers play the same music and the widow Beatrice Ann Stevenson repeats the same Emily Dickinson poems at every social affair. Not only does Kinsella repeat in his recounts of the stories, but in his descriptions of the people or events. Every time the baseball game is mentioned, Kinsella finds it necessary to state the Major League team consists of Bob Feller, Hal Newhouser, and Joe DiMaggio himself, a detail that becomes all too annoying.
Truckbox Al's strikeout in the big game reverts the area back to where it started, just the town and its people, no one more famous than anyone else. Box socials are a very appropriate event in the Six Towns because a box lunch is exactly what they are. The box of the area encloses all its people and they share only with each other what is in their box, their hearts, their minds. Although a nice idea, the nostalgia in Box Socials transforms a book about baseball into a book about small town life. Do not be misled,baseball fans, this one is for those desiring to relive the past.

simply astounding.......2001-08-27

The view into the life of an alberta youth by kinsella is a one of a kind book. Kinsella wraps you into the culture of the small town in which the novel is based, doing an incomperable job of getting you involved with not only the lead, but every character involved. They way in which Kinsella writes this book, it is as if it wasn't a novel at all, but an autobiography; as if Kinsella had lived through the story. An unparalelled work, I find myself buying a copy of this book every 5 years or so as the binding wears thin from overuse. One that stands alone with a forever reserved spot in my life

Box Socials mediocre, plotless.......2000-03-15

WP Kinsella's book "Box Socials" is an excellent insight into the white trash of Alberta. It displays a community kind of like Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," with many well-defined social classes in an area where you're judged by your name. However, the book loses a plot during a Ukranian wedding, and it drudges on to the end.

I don't want to be rude but..........1999-02-27

THIS BOOK STINKS. I found it boring and repetitive. I should have done my laundry instead, it would have been more exciting. It's time to retire Mr. Kinsella

Know T. R. Pearson's Examples or Miss Kinsella's Model Here!.......1998-09-26

Without the example of T. R. Pearson's A BRIEF HISTORY OF A SMALL PLACE Kinsella would have had no precedent for the repetitive style he uses in BOX SOCIALS, a novel set in the time and place of his own childhood, west of Edmonton near a place called Darwell in the 1930s--when you were supposed to have a license from the government to turn your radio on!

That he succeeds in telling a baseball tale in a time when he himself knew no baseball and weaves in some truths about the racism that existed in what was, even there, a multi-cultural environment is a tribute to his inventiveness.

Customer Reviews:

Kinsella's best collection of short stories.......2004-06-18

My brother told me about W.P. Kinsella in 1984 and I've been a huge fan ever since. I've read everything I can find by him, starting with "Shoeless Joe" and this might be my favorite book of his. He has written at least three collections of baseball short stories and this is easily the best.

Most of the stories are not so much about baseball, it's more a case of using baseball as a background and common thread to tie the stories all together.

These are the kind of stories you can read over and over again. One of my favorites was the story about the fans who decided to turn the latest player's strike into a chance to replace astroturf with real grass. With the stadium shut down for the strike, they came in and returned the field to a natural state. I've always thought that when the players strike they should strike to get rid of astroturf; a cause many fans could get behind.

I don't know of any baseball fan who would not enjoy these stories.

Some gems (diamonds, actually).......2003-11-06

A collection of baseball stories - or rather, stories involving baseball and baseball players in some way. Kinsella is at hist best when he stays close to earth - hopeful bush leaguers, women trouble - but tends to go way over the top when he tries to involve more "magic" (in his own words) to the game and the story. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy suffered from this problem, and so do a few of the stories in this collection. But when his "stories aren't about events, they're about the people they happen to", he has a wonderful touch. Some of my favourites in this collection are "Drive me to the moon", about a Rookie leaguer and his affair in a one-horse town in Canada, "Barefoot and pregnant in Des Moines", about a big league star and his marriage. Some of these stories are true gems and fully warrant the five-star rating; others are filler, but then even the most classic games have their straightforward 6-3 groundouts.

Classic baseball fiction, especially for Cub fans.......2003-10-17

W. P. Kinsella writes with poignance and wit, capturing both the humor and the occasional tragedy of the game. This collection displays some of his best work.

My alltime favorite among this collection is "The Last Pennant Before Armageddon." In the wake of the Cubs' collapse this fall, a work like this has real prescience and is somehow reassuring that there was a higher purpose behind it all.

Still, there are other strong stories in the mix. In one, the narrator is offered the chance to trade places with the recently-killed Yankees catcher Thurman Munson. Another, more whimsical story takes you inside the clubhouse of the 1951 Giants, as a surprisingly literate team debates whether The Greaty Gatsby is an allegory.

For me, "The Last Pennant Before Armageddon" is reason enough to buy this book. In the wake of the 2003 NLCS, I feel a dire need to read it . . . repeatedly.

The Thrill of Kinsella--The Master of Storytelling.......2000-06-24

Kinsella is short stories. Period. I started reading this book as an average teenager who hated baseball, sports and those who played them. I come away from it, my opinions about "jocks" shaken. If you do read it, look for the themes of desolation, failure, dreams, and a "grief cycle" which is really Kinsella's Theory of Life. Extradonairy....beyond description.

Kinsella is a true genius.......2000-04-24

This book was not only enjoyable, but touching. The stories that Kinsella pens in this wonderful collection will change the way you look at the world. Baseball is is more than just a pastime, it is an American legacy. This book brings the romance and passion of the devoted heart of a culture to a vibrant vitality of existence, and will capture the reader in it's embrace. The traditionalists will love the story about astro-turf, and the tenacious Cub fan will love the prophetic story about armageddon. I dearly loved this collection.

Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa: Stories

Average customer rating:

Some very good stories...
Chapter 1 of novel SHOELESS JOE is this book's title story!
This is the best book I have ever read.

Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa: Stories
W. P. Kinsella
Manufacturer: Southern Methodist University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

Some very good stories..........2000-05-31

I enjoyed this book as any Kinsella fan would. I found some of the stories true gems, but others I found somewhat uninteresting. This is not Kinsella's greatest selection, but it shows a different side of the author and some of the stories are more adult oriented content. I enjoyed the stories 'Fiona the First', 'Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa', 'A Picture of the Virgin' and 'A Blacksmith Shop Caper' as the real good ones. Those alone are worth the book, so you won't be disappointed overall.

Chapter 1 of novel SHOELESS JOE is this book's title story!.......1998-10-01

"Fiona the First," the opening story in this collection, was cited for excellence by Stanley Elkin and Shannon Ravenel in the 1980 edition of BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES.

Speaking to bibliographer Ann Knight in 1983, Kinsella admitted that a few details from this story are semi-autobiographical: "The lady who keeps saying, 'He can put his shoes under my bed,' I saw at a Vancouver Mounties game in Seattle in 1954." And, "the business about the stewardess trying to give away a baby happened to me and a young lady at the Vancouver International Airport in 1970 or '71."

These stories celebrate particular relationships: between father and son, brother and sister, perfect strangers, a spiritual icon and her admirers, doctor and patient, father and daughter, bowling buddies, etc. They are classic Kinsella. No fan of his opus will want to overlook these initial, "adult-oriented" adventures into the regions of Magic Realism. These tales are Icarus flyers; they tempt the sun to melt their wings.

This is the best book I have ever read........1998-04-27

I first saw the movie Field of Dreams when I was in the 3rd grade, I loved the movie so much. Then in the 6th grade my teacher started to read us the book, but never even came close to finishing, I was disappointed. Then, this year (10th grade) I read it over Christmas break, and I couldn't put it down. I have never read a book that could calm me down and not make me sleepy. I had to get my wisdom teeth out and I was currently reading that book, everytime I got nervous I read the book and it relaxed me! I recomend this to anyone who likes baseball or just loves to read. Even if you don't like to read I still recomend it! It is better than the movie and I still think the movie is good, there is just to much to capture. I could read that book again and again! So, I recomend it to everyone!

The Moccasin Telegraph and Other Indian Tales (Nonpareil Book, No 72)

Average customer rating:

Very real stories about very real people

The Moccasin Telegraph and Other Indian Tales (Nonpareil Book, No 72)
W. P. Kinsella
Manufacturer: David R. Godine Publisher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Brother Frank's Gospel Hour: Stories

ASIN: 0879239816

Customer Reviews:

Very real stories about very real people.......2001-04-02

Kinsella paints a somewhat bleak yet very warming image of reservation life. It's hard not to feel personally connected to the main characters, in part because of the slightly naive writing style of Silas Ermineskin, the young Native American writer through whom these stories are told.

The subjects of the stories are very real people, with very real problems and emotions: love, jealousy, poverty, shame, friendship. The secluded community they live in accents these emotions, and the distrust from whites and their relative poverty sometimes adds a bittersweet taste to the stories. But there is humour and happiness, too, when Frank Fence-post dreams up another one of his stories, or Big Etta comes into view.

I picked up this book after reading Shoeless Joe and The Iowa Baseball confederacy. I was surprized at how different in tone and style these stories are; Kinsella could be two writers for producing such dissimilar works. What they have in common is a kind of magic, the big and little wishes and dreams that everybody subconsciously has. I thouroughly recommend these stories to anyone with a taste for personal feeling over action.

Dance Me Outside: More Tales from the Ermineskin Reserve (Nonpareil Books, No 73)
Average customer rating:

Quick, easy, interesting

Should be a must read of american literature

Provocative Short Stories With a Moral

Quintessential Kinsella!

Kinsella's First Stories As Good As His Best!

Dance Me Outside: More Tales from the Ermineskin Reserve (Nonpareil Books, No 73)
W. P. Kinsella
Manufacturer: David R. Godine Publisher
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0879239824

Customer Reviews:

Quick, easy, interesting.......2003-05-25

My first Kinsella read. While the syntax takes a little getting used to I found that it was a quick, easy read. Usually I'm a slow reader but this took me no time in getting through. The characters are great. I've now just started THE FENCEPOST CHRONICLES also by Kinsella.

Should be a must read of american literature.......2002-10-02

Everybody's used to sad insightful writing. Rarely do we find graceful funny twists on life's injustices. These short stories present a native view of a changing world that makes you remember home.
We are all familiar with the immigrant's stories; now, here are the natives, human, funny and enduring. As one who has lived on "the res", and heard the laughter of my family down the halls, I am thankful for these writings. As a baseball fan, I am unsurprised that these are given to us by the same man who presented Shoeless Joe to our hungry hearts.

Provocative Short Stories With a Moral.......2001-09-16

This book remains on my top-ten reading list, due to Kinsella's hard hitting expression of life's many ironies, foibles and realities. Each fiction story is compelling and fast-moving; adeptly using humor, grief and affection to hit you with one of life's bitter-sweet truths. Each story has a couple lines near the end that quite subtly imply a moral to "tell it like it is." The easily-read stories have a few common characters to help with each different setting. This is Kinsella's best package of short stories -- which deserves to be reprinted. At least for this middle-aged guy, 'Dance Me Outside' is an excellent read.

Quintessential Kinsella!.......1999-02-03

Social commentary that makes for an interesting read. I found most of the stories very amusing, some very thought-provoking. Kinsella doesn't attempt to "candy-coat" or romanticize the experience of Native North Americans, but tells his stories in a very straightforward, and amusing, way. This is still one of my favourite books-I highly recommend the "sequels" as well!

Kinsella's First Stories As Good As His Best!.......1998-09-26

Nonpareil calls this "more stories" because they are reprinting what was, in fact, Kinsella's first collection. It came off the presses while he was a grad student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1983, he spoke to bibliographer Ann Knight about the story "Caraway" in this collection, saying,

"My wife Mickey had an influence on this story. She was writing a tv script about an old woman whose daughter dies on the prairies under suspicious circumstances and the Catholic Church refuses to bury her in their cemetery.

"As I read it, I kept asking, 'What does she do with the body?' I suggested that she burn it in her front yard, and even went so far as to write the scene. It was never used in the teleplay and I was stuck with a coffin burning scene I had no use for.

"I don't like to waste any material, so I set about to create a story where there could be a coffin burning. I think the three paragraphs where I describe the coffin burning are the 'best' I have ever written."

Book Description

Magic Time is vintage Kinsella. It is a novel of hope and promise and baseball that becomes humorous, enchanting fiction.

Customer Reviews:

Iowa , baseball, and love.......2003-09-13

Kinsella does it again! As in Shoeless Joe and Iowa Baseball Confederacy, he returns to the theme of Iowa, baseball, and true love. A solid triple, not quite the grand slam of previous novels, but fun. You know where it is going, and yet you enjoy the ride.
Mike Houle is a great college player who had a terrible senior year...and yet reports to Grand Mound, Iowa, for Cornbelt League. Or does he...............? If you love baseball, small towns, the feeling you have stepped back into a world of no pc's, cell phones, and terrorism, than this is for you....not a lot of brain power required, but a great escape!

Is This Heaven? No, It's Iowa (and a pretty good book).......2002-05-14

W.P. Kinsella, transplanted from Canada to Iowa, writes about two of his favorite topics in Magic Time: Iowa and baseball. As those are two of my more favorite subjects, I read Magic Time and came away a little less satisfied than I would have hoped to be. The story opens with the background/childhood of Mike Houle, hustling baseball player (in a good sense). The first few chapters are consumed with an oft-told story concerning baseball distances; if you haven't heard the story before, I won't spoil it for you except to say that it has been around and used in stories over the years. Mike goes on to make himself into a minor star in college but didn't quite have enough "talent" to be drafted into the minor leagues, to put it politely. His agent lands him a spot in the Cornbelt League in Iowa, with the Grand Mound team. The other teams in the league, spread out along U.S. 30 in eastern Iowa, also appear to draft players, give them day jobs and have plenty of time for the players to practice. Eventually, though, the secrets of the Cornbelt League are discovered: there's more sociology taking place here than league baseball games. While the book does have its moments of disjointedness and pleasure, I found the most enjoyable part of the book was in considering the notion of what the people of Grand Mound were trying to do, and what a baseball player would do in the same situation: stay or go? Accept what I was or prove everyone wrong? Having lived in a small town in eastern Iowa up the road aways from U.S. 30, and having loved living there, I think Mike was getting a heck of a deal - if he could appreciate it. But then, that's part of the fun of reading, placing ourselves in the character's position. Magic Time can certainly give you the opportunity to do that - and it does it pretty well.

Baseball Fairy Tale.......2002-04-19

Mike Houle is a baseball player who, unaccountably choked in his senior year at LSU and is left undrafted by the major leagues. When his agent calls with a chance to play in semi-pro ball in Iowa, Mike agrees although he's never heard of the team or the league. At least, his agent assures him, the major league scouts will have a chance to see him play.

What Houle finds in Grand Mound Iowa comes as a complete surprise to him. Families take in ball players--especially families with young and attractive daughters. Is that normal? And Grand Mound, according to his sponsor, is one of the few towns in Iowa which is actually growing. The entire town shows up for the regular inter-squad matches held by the local semi-pro team and Houle, the pressure off, finds himself playing the best baseball of his life.

He may be playing great baseball but he isn't stupid. There's something going on in this town, and with this team, that just doesn't make sense.

Author W. P. Kinsella creates an ode to baseball as the solution to the world's problems. In a strange, fairy tale part of Iowa, baseball has become the savior of a town, and the town in turn has become the salvation to a number of players who had somehow lost touch with the love of the game. Kinsella's lyrical writing makes MAGIC TIME an intriguing and compelling read. Although the plot itself is somewhat slow moving (but then, people say the same thing about baseball), Houle's coming of age and his growing realization of the mystery of Grand Mound made me keep turning the pages.

It's all about the distances.......2002-04-11

I liked the book. The story is one of a young baseball player overcoming his personal denial in his search for happiness and purpose to his life.

Mike Houle, a ballplayer fresh out of college with a business degree (a rarity) waits for the chance to get drafted but gets passed over because of a dismal senior season. He had always been an excellent second baseman, leadoff singles hitter and base stealer, but now finds himself waiting by the phone. His agent sends him to an obscure league in Iowa where things are not quite as they see.

Think - "Shoeless Joe (or Field of Dreams)" meets "The Stepford Wives" only not as sinister.

The character Mike holds the story together. His voice, motives and emotions are believable and while he's smart enough to know better he sometimes chooses the wrong path. He holds to his dream.

I enjoyed Kinsella's writing. The dialogue is great and there are many interesting stories within the story, like the Roger Cash episode where he bests the town's top team with only a group of high schoolers to back him up. It's all about the distances.

Emmett Powell and his family were a hoot and there are a number of quirky characters in the mix.

My critiques: A lot of telling and not enough showing. There are scenes where someone is relating a story and I lose sense of where I am, especially when the storyteller basically drops out of the novel. The imagery is vivid but I wanted more substance.
Going with the previous comment, I felt many of the characters were not fully developed. We never really get to know Mike's brother, Byron. Nor do we get much insight into Daniel Morganstern's issues with the team. Stanley Wood disappears about halfway through, as does Crease. McMartin has an episode then reappears later.

Would I recommend the book? Yes, it's a pleasant summer read.

interesting, if not a little disjointed.......2002-02-09

While I'm normally a fan of W.P. Kinsella, I found this book to be very disjointed. Its important for potential readers to know that the book is built around various short stories that Kinsella has written at various times. The central story itself is an expansion of an earlier short story, "The Dixon Cornbelt League". While I found the central story fascinating, the whole experience of the book suffered because entire chapters are devoted to old short stories that have nothing to do with the central plot of the novel. While I recommend this book, I think potential readers should beware that instead of getting an independent novel, you're getting a group of repackaged short stories.

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