The Art of Fielding

by Chad Harbach

A wonderful, warm novel from a major American voice.

`It's left a little hole in my life the way a really good book will’ Jonathan Franzen

A small American college. Five very different lives. One terrible mistake.

At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for the big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. His error will upend the fates of five people. Henry's burgeoning self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight falls unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight returns to Westish, determined to start a new life.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, all five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets.

`The best debut novel I’ve read this year - assured, funny, poignant and deeply satisfying’ Evening Standard

• ISBN13: 9780007374465
• Publish Date: 1 September 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Fourth Estate Ltd
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 450
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

I spent close to five months reading this book because I didn’t want it to end. Right now I’m in love with books that pack all of life in them. Messy and stuffed full. This one has baseball and Melville and everything I could want, including The Human Condition.

“The Human Condition being, basically, that we’re alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not.”

I wanted it to last nine seasons and two movies and then two miniseries two decades later. And I wanted The Art of Fielding, the book within the book, to be real.

[Joséphine]

Initial thoughts: While I'm not into baseball, I still enjoyed The Art of Fielding especially for the sport. Athleticism was clearly front and centre. At the same time, there were lots of layers to the plot in terms of family, friends and romance. There was so much going on though, that at times it almost bordered on one big drama fest. But Chad Harbach developed his characters so well that I could see the events unfold the way they did. The book was complex and not for the faint of heart. It was much sadder than I had expected it to be.

[vagasker]

This book was a long read. It wasn't hard to understand (English isn't my native language), but it was hard for me to get into. Eventually I began to care about the characters and that's when I started to like it. Especially Henry, but I guess that's because I'm a giant baseball nerd and I really loved his chapters and his personality appealed to me.