The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
I read this book a few months ago (I know, I'm terrible with writing book reviews). I discovered this book by accident. I was actually looking at another book in the library and when I pulled it from the shelf, this book was next to it. The title caught my eye, so I decided to read the jacket summary. It's not a book I would normally read, but hey- it involved baseball, so of course I had to check it out and read it.
I don't know what "genre" to place this book under. If you click here you can get a summary of the book. I think if you love baseball, you will probably enjoy this book a little bit more than someone who is not a fan. There is a lot about the life of a baseball player in here (and some "baseball talk" that a non-fan might not understand). I'll be honest. If it wasn't for the baseball angle, I probably wouldn't have liked this book that much as I did.
When I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down. The author did a great job of "reeling in" the reader into the life of Henry Skrimshander and the four other main characters. Towards the end (maybe the last third of the book or so), I felt myself not as "into it" as I was at the beginning. It wasn't that it was that bad, it just seemed that parts of the story were lagging and missing...something. I honestly think the author made the book a little bit too long, he probably could have cut about 100 pages out of the book to make it flow better (the book was over 500 pages).
I discovered after I finished the book that this was the author's first novel. For a first novel, I think he did an okay job. I would be interested in reading another work of fiction by him. I can tell that he is a good writer, and he has the ability to be a good story-teller.
XOXO!
This book has been on my to-read list for years, and I even picked it up to start reading once. But I've never made it very far. We'll see when I get around to it. With your review, it's not moving to the top of my list...
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