The Iowa Baseball Confederacy: A Novel

If you enjoyed reading Shoeless Joe or watching its movie version “Field of Dreams”, this is a book for you! Kinsella has an easy reading style and a narrative high in candor.I don’t want to offer any spoilers only to say the protagonist, Gideon Clarke, is sort of the town wacko (Onamata, Iowa) who insists in 1978 that the 1908 Chicago Cubs played a legendary exhibition game against locals seventy years prior. His father, who was the town wacko in his time, was a history professor who believed the same and devoted much of his life trying to prove it.Gideon thought his dad was a wacko until he mysteriously decided to take up the same cause.Kinsella does a good job withholding information and keeping you on your toes. I will not say any more about the plot but it goes from there.I didn’t give it five stars because the story dragged and unraveled towards the end. But I still enjoyed it, a welcome departure from reality.

This is a wonderfully wacky fictional baseball story that uses magical realism to create a fascinating adventure through time and space. I really like W. P. Kinsella's flowing writing style, especially his use of imagery and metaphor to enhance our sensory experience (just like we got in "Shoeless Joe" -- his book that became the "Field of Dreams" movie). There are some poignant moments in this novel, plus two themes in particular that made me reflect on life, the universe, and everything. What he does best here, though, is keep me wondering what will happen next. At first, I was a bit mystified by the quirky premise and unusual events in the story, but as Kinsella stitched the narrative together and things came full circle, the result was, well, kinda like a baseball...

Excited to find a book I had from my childhood...different cover but the same content...also don't loan books you love....

Kinsella is a master story teller and specializes in baseball and indigenous American themes. Field of Dreams is outdone in its fantasy and humor by The Iowa Baseball Confederacy. If you love baseball, the Cubs, and/or Iowa, then this book is something you will enjoy fully. If you love mystery and/or romance literature, you will be pleased by Kinsella's story and writing.

Love this book, though may not be for you if you don't like "magical realism." Why baseball is unique among sports, why the stories endure, and why the game may be the highest form of sport and art.

"I won't be moved". If this novel is typical of magical realism, I won't be moved to read another example. While the plot had the making of a good story in the mold of Darryl Brock's "If I never get back", the fantasy and mysticism of Kinsella's book falls flat. It is repetitious and even a baseball fanatic such as I can not deal with a 2,000 inning game. Maybe it is beyond my intelligence level or my ability to appreciate magical realism, but for whatever reason, it doesn't work for me

I thought this novel started off so well. I continued to drone on about it to one of my friends in terms of how original Kinsella's writing was. This held up for about one hundred pages and from there the story line became muddled and was so far out there that I began to lose interest. I hoped to be reinvigorated toward the end of the book, but I felt that the story fell somewhat flat. The only reason I gave it 3 stars is because of the wonderful character set-ups at the beginning.

Strange little story! At times, I felt like just giving up on it; but I just had to find out who won the game!!

The cover picture shown is exactly as I received but it is not illustrated

La 1ère partie du livre est super, la 2ème un peu moins. Un peu de magical realism dans l'histoire. L'histoire elle-même commence bien mais devient un peu trop incroyable. L'auteur a du mal à garder l'attention du lecteur.

Brilliant.

Everything as advertised.