Art of Fielding - by Chad Harbach

I first read an excerpt of this book in Sports Illustrated. Then, it showed up on Amazon's Top 100 of 2011 list. It's one of those books that has all kinds of people writing things like "Best First Novel Ever!" - or "A Terrific Start" - or "Couldn't put it down." All of those sorts of things always make me a little suspicious; if too many reviewers think the book was that good, I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't the publisher's marketing campaign that made it good, rather than the writing.

While I don't necessarily agree with all of the hyperbole that preceded my reading of the book, I will say it was a pretty good book. Knowing it was the author's first published novel probably adds to a little more to that assessment. Basically, the book talks about relationships (family, friends, lovers) and goals/dreams. There are 5 main characters - 2 that you meet right at the start of the book. The relationships and goals/dreams revolve around baseball (hence the title, and the excerpt in Sports Illustrated). The five main characters consist of Henry Skrimshander (shortstop) and Mike Schwartz (catcher); Owen Dunne (Henry's intellectual, gay roommate, also a player on the baseball team); Guert Affenlight (the University President) and Pella Affenlight (Guert's "prodigal" daughter; later girlfriend to Mike Schwartz).

There are plenty of baseball scenes for the sport nerd - plus plenty of reference to literature (Guert was an English professor before becoming the university President). There are some slow parts (about 2/3 of the way through), and the ending turns out to be better than you were anticipating (not that you were anticipating anything bad - just as events unfolded you started to wonder whether it'd be one of those ending-that-totally-sucked-for-the-characters-but-surprised-you-as-the-reader type books (like John Grisham's "The Chamber"!)). There are some scenes that may be offensive to some (Guert and Owen develop a relationship), but they're easily skippable. Overall, I found it an interesting book - recommended to anyone who knows at least a little bit about baseball (if you don't, you'll have to get used to the multitude of baseball - especially shortstop - references).