Recommended by Peter Sagal in this interview:http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/touc...

The Great American Novel is a satire about baseball as not just America's national pastime, but the national religion. Coupled with the paranoia of Communism, Roth paints a ridiculous picture of the panic and frenzy gripping our country fifty years ago.

Sadly, the plot never really comes together for the book (probably partly because of the...dubiousness of its claims, and we're supposed to understand the narrator as addled anyway). The story instead is framed in biographies and anecdotes about the Patriot League's (the *third* baseball league which the Communists destroyed) most memorable players.

There were some amusing parts, and no lack of colorful characters, but other portions of the book just dragggged. I'm not sure it was worth 400 pages and the time I spent on it. ( )

Had to read in college. Probably one of the most misogynistic things I ever read (women are regularly referred to as "slits"). It gets two stars because some parts of it were pretty funny. ( )

A somewhat farcical novel by Roth, about a mythical third baseball league (The Patriot League) and their bottom-dwellers, the Ruppert Mundys, which in 1942 lost their home stadium to the war effort, and so became perpetual visitors - and doormats of the league. Filled with incredibly bizarre and inept players and plays, the book somehow manages to fold into the delicious humor a subplot about a plot by the Russians to destroy the fabric of America, by destroying baseball, by bringing about the ruin of the third major league, by bringing about the end of the Ruppert Mundys. Believe it or not, this book actually makes it plausible. ( )

http://scooterchronicles.com/2005/04/... ( )