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(Debuted at #1 in Hardcover Fiction) Calico Joe by John Grisham: ”In the summer of 1973 Joe Castle was the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone had ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas dazzled Cub fans as he hit home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shattered all rookie records. Calico Joe quickly became the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing Mets pitcher.” (April 2012)(Debuted at #10 in Hardcover Nonfiction) A Natural Woman by Carole King: “A memoir by the iconic singer-songwriter chronicling her story from her beginnings in Brooklyn through her remarkable success as one of the world’s most acclaimed musical talents, to her present day as a leading performer and activist.” (April 2012)
(Debuted at #14 in Hardcover Nonfiction) Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs: ”Hospitalized with a freak case of tropical pneumonia, goaded by his wife telling him, “I don’t want to be a widow at forty-five,” and ashamed of a middle-aged body best described as “a python that swallowed a goat,” A.J. Jacobs felt compelled to change his ways and get healthy. And he didn’t want only to lose weight, or finish a triathlon, or lower his cholesterol. His ambitions were far greater: maximal health from head to toe.” (April 2012)
1 comment:
John Grisham turns from legal crime fiction to the national pasttime. CALICO JOE is so finely written it is difficult to tell fact from fiction as the reader is drawn into the story of Joe Castle and Waren Tracy as seen through the eyes of Warren's son, Paul.
Radio brought major league baseball into homes all over the US and in my opinon televison killed it. Baseball is the sport of imagination lived in the mind of the listener, the game is much too slow to interest a viewer. Even I recognized the names of the great sports broadcasters while never having heard anyone other than Caywood Leadford. Few kids of the 30s-70s didn't at one time or another spend time in the streets or sandlots playing the game of summer.
Grisham takes a nostalgic look at the players who gave us the term 'hardball' and the darker side of what was a national past time. Warren Tracy took out the rookie of the year with a fast ball to the head which cost both men their careers and a eleven-year-old boy his childhood.
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