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Dec 21, 2011

Greg rated it:

Review 1.1 updated introduction.

I've finished the book. I was a little wrong about how the book would end, I think I liked the book more because of the way it wrapped up than I expected to. I gave it an extra star. It is a pretty good book, not a great book, there are problems with it, some of the characters could be developed a bit more in places and some of the middle part of the book could have probably been reworked a little bit to make it not feel like a slog for a little bit More...

21 comments like (30 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

RandomAnthony rated it:

Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding is 2/3rds strong but maybe 100 pages too long. You know that weird paradox you feel when you like a book but kind of wish it was over? I felt that around, oh, page 350 of The Art of Fielding. So while I can recommend the novel, with reservations, I can't make the four star leap.

The storyline revolves around five characters and readers shouldn't be misled into thinking, as the inside cover description seems to imply, that Henry is the star and More...

11 comments like (39 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2012

Kemper rated it:

This novel should win some kind of award for Best Character Names. Check some of these out: Henry Skrimshander. Guert Affenlight. Pella Affenlight. Rick Starblind.

No John Smiths or Jane Does allowed in this one.

Mike Schwartz is a hard working and ambitious student athlete at second rate Westish College in Wisconsin. At a summer league baseball game, Mike sees Henry Skrimshander play and instantly recognizes that he’s seeing the kind of fielding talent that can only More...

2 comments like (27 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2012

Nya rated it:

The more I read the less I liked it. On the plus side, I enjoy reading a book that has an actual story rather than just a series of mood peices, but on the downside over the long haul the writing calls too much attention to itself as nothing is ever said simply, the stilted and even sophomoric use of names to endow this with literary gravitas was not only transparent but annoying, and if one is going to use baseball in a novel the game descriptions need to ring absolutely true, and these, sadly More...

5 comments like (11 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Miriam rated it:

People love to talk about the "great" books that aren't good reads. There's also the crap that people call "beach reads" but gobble up without taking seriously. But The Art of Fielding falls under a third category: A book I didn't like so much that I wanted to keep reading it.

I wanted to like it, I did. I like books that take place in college. I like baseball. I like baseball metaphors even more. but it felt like a book that took 10 years to write and not in a goo More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2011

Stuart rated it:

I'm from Wisconsin. This book takes place in Wisconsin. I love baseball. This book is about a baseball team from a fictitious Wisconsin college, Westish, which seems like a mix of Ripon and Lawrence. I love that fictitious name by the way. I love that school's absurd tie to Herman Melville as well and its funny Melville-related sports handle, The Harpooners. In a lot of ways, this book is as tailor made for me as a sharp ground ball is to a shortstop eager to make a 6-4-3 double play. It' More...

4 comments like (29 people liked it)

Nov 26, 2011

Lola425 rated it:

Everything they're saying about this book is true. I couldn't put it down. First, Harbach knows how to tell a story. I want to make a Franzen comparison, because this book gave me the same type of satisfying "ahhh" feeling I have when reading him, but he is not Franzen. Sometimes reading Franzen is like taking a vitamin. You know it's good for you, but sometimes it's a little bitter going down. Not so, with this book. His writing is lovely, without being highbrow. If you are a b More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2012

Peter rated it:

Man, I really didn't want to like this book. And here, quickly, are the reasons why:

Number 1) Pure jealousy. Harbach got paid like a bajillion dollars for his very first novel. I was paid slightly less than that. Okay, a lot less than that.

Number 2) I don't like n+1 magazine, of which he is the co-founder. I find it pretentious and boring. I would honestly rather read Cat Fancy.

Number 3) Harbach wrote an article about MFA vs. New York writers that was, in a More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Dec 07, 2011

Yulia rated it:

Certainly the best book to come from one of the founders of n+1, the others being Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel and All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen. Harbach said this book, his first, took him nine years to write and his effort paid off. The main characters are all very sympathetic and engaging and there's a reality to their reactions to the situations they confront that I found very realistic.

A review I read compared Harbach's voice to Franzen but I don't think there More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 24, 2011

Claire rated it:

The buzz about this book had my hopes high and I did start out enjoying it. However, my enjoyment waned as the book went on. I appreciated Harbach's writing, his turn of phrase and his imagination. He starts out with an interesting set of characters. Unfortunately, I didn't find any of the characters to be very well developed. The characters are more like props for the author rather than realistic people. After 500 pages, I did not know Henry Skrimshander. He appears to be a person who plays bas More...

4 comments like (19 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Michael rated it:

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: You do have to like baseball to appreciate fully Chad Harbach's début novel. Yes, it's about other things, but the focus is on baseball and how one's talent for the game, or lack thereof, affects one's sense of self-worth. Non-baseball fans would probably relate to many of the themes, but I doubt they'd give the book its due if they had to force their way through long set pieces about missed cut-off men and errant throws and hitting to the opposite field. It More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

switterbug (Betsey) rated it:

This tender campus novel about five individuals whose paths connect and cross--straight, not straight, diagonally, vertically, and sometimes horizontally, doesn't require you to like baseball, although you may be roused to watch a game when you close this lively book.

It opens in Peoria with a no-name tournament between small-time summer teams. Harbach sets the robust tone and pacing here, with a droll wit and a steady, fluid tempo. He coaxes us to treasure his characters as much as he More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Julie rated it:

Baseball. Such magic and possibility, such aromas and images and sounds and yearnings this simple, two-syllable word conveys to those lucky or cursed to be caught in its spell. A sport chock full of rules only a pedant could love, heaps of statistics that confound mathematicians, games that last so long enjoyment gives way to endurance... Yet it is holds a singular place in our national lore, leaving us starry-eyed for summers and lovers, for youth and potential that we only imagine we once poss More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2012

Ken rated it:

In his debut novel, The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach examines the lives of 5 people and the ways in which their paths intersect at the fictional Westish College in Wisconsin. Henry Skrimshander, the main character, is a socially awkward yet preternaturally good shortstop. Mike Schwartz in the dedicated catcher for the Westish Harpooners who discovers Henry during a summer league game and persuades him to attend Westish. Guert Affenlight is the president of the college, and Pella is his daughter More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 17, 2011

Gail rated it:

Is there a way to give a book six stars on here? Because I'd keep adding them if I could, I loved "The Art of Fielding" that much. Truly, I didn't want this novel to come to an end. Last night, I put the book down with 30 pages left. I honestly thought, "I want one more day to delve into this world." But then, 20 minutes later, there I was, picking it back up to reach its final page (and discovering a wholy satisfying resolution, which rarely happens for me with most books). More...

7 comments like (18 people liked it)

Nov 23, 2011

Paul rated it:

Graceful high school superstar shortstop Henry Skrimshander enrolls at Westish College and falls under the tutelage of Mike Schwartz, the team’s sophomore catcher. Soon the two are leading the way to a league championship. Ah . . . another baseball story, you say. Well, yes and no. Certainly the baseball backdrop adds an element of excitement to the novel. But author Chad Harbach has more in mind. Focusing on several of the denizens of the college (the president and his daughter, Pella; t More...

12 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 25, 2011

Lillian rated it:

Henry Skrimshander is the star shortstop for the Westish College Harpooners. He is the fulcrum around which the lives of four other people revolve and they are profoundly affected when his star begins to fade.

Not since Russo's Empire Falls have I encountered such characters that breathe with life. Whenever I put the book down, I felt like the characters were sitting on the couch beside me waiting for me to get back to the action. There was one more individual whose life turned on Hen More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

Julie rated it:

The Art of Fielding is one of those old-fashioned, big-hearted, sink-into-it novels. The author's delight in his characters, all coming of age in different ways, is clear. It is a joy to be in such company. He writes of baseball with an ease that is very accessible. The opening chapter is delicious! My only complaint is that I felt the author's affection for his characters perhaps made him reluctant to do some judicious editing, from which I thought the book would have benefited overall. S More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 22, 2012

E. rated it:

I haven't read a hardback in 10 years. I have a super strong aversion to books that are getting a lot of buzz (art of fielding was sold at Barnes and Noble when I stopped by) and lugging around hardbacks drive me crazy.....carrying books that qualify as literature around with me is pretentious enough......when that book is ginormous it's even worse. But, Art of Fielding was referred to me enough times, by enough people I respect that I broke my own rule. And it was pretty much worth it.
More...

0 comments like

Feb 20, 2012

Nicolemauerman rated it:

Thus far I have some luck with highly praised books, but others were just disappointments (The Tiger's Wife, Swamplandia!) and I really wasn't excited to read this one. At just over 500 pages it could be quite the investment, but it's not. It's a really engrossing book about baseball and the young people that play it. This book is set at a liberal arts college in the midwest where football is king, but Henry a scrawny kid has so much potential that the baseball team capiton, Mike, convinces the More...

0 comments like

Feb 18, 2012

Kbryna rated it:

It was an enjoyable read and held my interest (I was skeptical initially that it would), but it is not the transcendent masterwork some critics/readers suggest it is. There's a lot that feels familiar - casual sex, betrayals, lots of male drunkenness as coping mechanism - as well as a touch of pretension that I could have done without.
As I say, I enjoyed the story, but it did feel, ultimately, too long by maybe 80-100 pages. I never felt like I knew any of the characters really intimately; More...

0 comments like

Feb 15, 2012

Tim rated it:

Chad Harbach makes in his debut novel the typical rookie mistake of not editing himself, of throwing everything into the pot. That leaves "The Art of Fielding," at 512 pages, occasionally unwieldy in its own weight and with a bloated middle. Harbach gives us short chapter after short chapter that add little to the story, and the plot starts to drift. But he brings home this tale (3.5 stars) of baseball and love and friendship and academia with more-focused panache, saving a 4-star rati More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2012

Richard rated it:

Perhaps by its very nature, baseball is a sentimental sport. It’s a sport about the perpetual chase of perfection, and the inevitable failure that goes along with that, and the mind set required to participate in such a sport at its highest levels.

THE ART OF FIELDING by Chad Harbach understands this better than any other book I’ve ever read. The novel initially drew my attention when I read reviews that compared it to “The Natural,” declaring it an entrant in the “best baseball novel e More...

0 comments like

Feb 12, 2012

Ellen rated it:

Pretty much hyped as the latest Great American Novel (note the capitalisation), I had high hopes for this first novel. As a first novel, it is excellent. As a novel, it's a bit weaker. I'm surprised that, as a first novel, it wasn't edited a bit more tightly.

Here in Britain, reviewers wondered if the baseball narratives would be too much for British readers. They shouldn't be a problem, however as they're the best written part of the book. It's when Harbach leaves behind the baseball More...

0 comments like

Feb 07, 2012

James added it

I think to be a successful reader, you sometimes need to put a book down and not pick it up again.

This isn't always because a book is bad.

In my case, it has often been because I'm not ready for the book that I've picked up.
I'm thinking particularly of my struggles in high school to 'get' authors such as Patrick White or Jane Austen. For very different reasons, I couldn't find that sympathetic place within me for either writer.
I did found it later (Persuasi More...

0 comments like

Feb 06, 2012

Jennifer rated it:

I'm having a hard time coming up with anything new to add to the conversation about this book since it seems to be everywhere, read by everyone, and reviewed pretty consistently. The characters are not perfectly written but they are very engaging. Harbach does a good job of giving us several different narrators who all have their own distinct voice, even if some are better fleshed out than others. The baseball is interwoven throughout the book but not hard to follow for those not well versed More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2012

Catherine rated it:

The setting for this novel is a fictional liberal arts college in the upper mid-west. The school baseball team is in contention to make the playoffs for the first time, and the star shortstop, Henry, is drawing interest from professional scouts. Henry is one of the protagonists, along with his roommate Owen, their teammate Mike Schwartz, and the school president and his daughter, Guert and Pella Affenlight.

I had read enough reviews to know in advance that part of the plot would prob More...

0 comments like

Feb 05, 2012

Chuck rated it:

Chad Harbach hits a home run with his first time at bat in The Art of Fielding (Little, Brown, $28.99). It seems like a lifetime ago that I read W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe (later made into the movie, Field of Dreams) and was inspired to join a slo-pitch league in Mount Forest (where we opened our first bookstore). I doubt that The Art of Fielding will have the same impact but it did re-awaken memories of baseballs, gloves, and green grass. Henry is recruited to play shortstop for Westish Colle More...

0 comments like

Feb 05, 2012

Laura rated it:

Have I mentioned to you that I love my job? I think one of the major reasons for this happiness is the people I work with. They're the sort of people who has been passing around a torn galley of "The Art of Fielding" and reading it in succession. They're the sort of people whose reads of this book are hidden in between its pages, whose fingerprints have been cast on pages that my fingertips now cover. They're the sort of people I'll get to bother tomorrow in order to illicit a disc More...

0 comments like

Jan 31, 2012

Vanessa rated it:

So after about five paragraphs, my impression of this book was "Wow, this is seriously a Dude Book." And I wondered if you could enjoy it if you didn't totally love baseball, or even care about baseball much at all. But then I got really into it and thought the plot and characters were great for maybe half of the book, and then I thought it totally lost steam and was not so great. But you don't have to love baseball to like it, and if you love Moby Dick you will appreciate that the aut More...

3 comments like (7 people liked it)