Book-A-Thon 2: Electric Bookaloo

With the offseason starting some of us will looking around in every direction for a way to satisfy the baseball itch. Luckily the game of baseball has a wide variety of side pursuits, that while might not replace the game can at least distract while we wait for spring. Baseball simulator games, softball and baseball leagues, films and books created to document and celebrate the game. These are all ways to hold on to summer well after it has lost its glow.

Last year I tried out a book series. I challenged myself, and anyone who was crazy enough to join me, to read a baseball book a month. We then attempted to talk about the book. The conversation afterwards never really developed, for which I take responsibility, but for me it was not completely about the discussion. It was reading and discovering baseball books that I might have passed by.

So I'd like to try it again this year. Last year we read 5 books. This year I want to do the same, or perhaps 4 if that's more agreeable. The point isn't to read all of the books. Read what you can, or want to read.

If you're going to have a reading series, you need some books. I'd like to open the floor for suggestions, from which we'll attempt to narrow down to a slate to vote on. I'll start off with some suggestions, but feel free to respond in the comments with your own, or if you're even interested in participating in the Book-A-Thon 2.

Fiction

Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella

the Southpaw by Mark Harris

Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris

the Brothers K by David James Duncan

the Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover

the Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Biographies

Willie Mays: the Life, the Legend by James S Hirsch

Veeck--As in Wreck by Bill Veeck

Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker

Campy: the Two Lives of Roy Campanella by Neil Lanctot