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Loading... Shoeless Joe (original 1982; edition 1999)by W. P. Kinsella
Work detailsShoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella (1982)
None.  PMaranci | Apr 3, 2013 |  Shoeless Joe is a good book about baseball. Any baseball fan would want to read this book. I read this book because my dad said I would like it. edspicer | Feb 11, 2013 | I think everything has been said about this book already. Personal observations are: A few differences from the movie, notably the "Terrence Mann" character. Much better in the book, Ray's brother, the time sequence is switched up a little here and there, and Annie is supportive but very subdued. I read this book as a "buddy" read with my husband. I think there were a few time when the author went off on rants and my husband sort of tuned out.But, other than that this was a whale of a read. I'm not even a baseball fan! (  ) gpangel | Nov 17, 2012 | This is the book that became the movie, "Field of Dreams". Love 'em both (the book and the movie). ( ) tgraettinger | Sep 19, 2012 | good book (  ) mistyd10 | Apr 2, 2012 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0395957737, Paperback)W. P. Kinsella plays with both myth and fantasy in his lyrical novel, which was adapted into the enormously popular movie, Field of Dreams. It begins with the magic of a godlike voice in a cornfield, and ends with the magic of a son playing catch with the ghost of his father. In Kinsella's hands, it's all about as simple, and complex, as the object of baseball itself: coming home. Like Ring Lardner and Bernard Malamud before him, Kinsella spins baseball as backdrop and metaphor, and, like his predecessors, uses the game to tell us a little something more about who we are and what we need.(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:46:37 -0400) A dreamer builds a baseball diamond amid the Iowa cornfields and waits for the outstanding, but dead, baseball players of the past to show up for a very special game. (summary from another edition) |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
5
Add it to the very short list of books which aren't as good as their movie adaptations. A lot of the speeches were improved by much pruning for the movie, and the plot was cleaned up a good bit, too.
The book is okay, and I can see that for some it might really "click". But to me it just doesn't quite work. The whole thing felt forced to me, a too-deliberate attempt to create a classic (not unlike [b:The Polar Express|420282|The Polar Express|Chris VanAllsburg|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327961191s/420282.jpg|1045364], which was annoying as a book and loathsome as a movie). [a:Peter S. Beagle|1067608|Peter S. Beagle|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1198544926p2/1067608.jpg] is able to create a far more authentic magical feeling in his books; fans of [b:Shoeless Joe|57736|Shoeless Joe|W.P. Kinsella|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170476259s/57736.jpg|977324] might appreciate Beagle. They might like [a:Jack Finney|6944|Jack Finney|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1243650090p2/6944.jpg], too. Both are considerably more deft stylists than Kinsella.
And frankly, if I were [a:J.D. Salinger|819789|J.D. Salinger|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1288777679p2/819789.jpg] I'd have sued the crap out of the author. (