The Books Briefing: America’s Pastime
Your weekly guide to the best in books will take you out to the ball game.
Something about summer makes the simplest pleasures—such as a good book on a still day—feel like the height of contentment. “America’s pastime” of baseball is a bit more satisfying, too, when the skies are at their bluest and the sun doesn’t set on the ballpark until well into the evening.
Ring Lardner, a beat reporter from baseball’s early days, uses the sport’s meditative quality to draw, which follows a fringe Major Leaguer. The ballplayer in Chad Harbach’s , a Division III collegeshortstop, mulls the circumstances of his misery after suddenly forgetting how to play. In ,the sports columnist Barry Svrluga details the mental and physical demands of a stress-filled 162-game season.
