Doug Bauer has written a love story, "The Beckoning World". A man and a woman. A father and son. A love for a more innocent time. A lovely homage to America’s midwest. And a love story about baseball. It’s a simple book really—until it’s not. Boy meets girl. Boy is a promising pitcher. Girl's father says, "You pick: my daughter or baseball." He picks the girl. But then the book veers back to baseball and the protagonist pitcher and his son are barnstorming across America with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Sound implausible? Doug makes it seem perfectly reasonable. The Beckoning World is evocative of the early 20th century, conjures up small town baseball parks (you can almost smell the peanuts), and makes you feel like you know the Babe and Lou. Especially the Babe.
And speaking of small towns, this week’s bookstore is Fact and Fiction in Missoula, Montana. Give it all a listen.
Books mentioned in this podcast:
The Beckoning World by Douglas Bauer
The Book of Famous Iowans by Douglas Bauer
The Very Air by Douglas Bauer
Dexterity by Douglas Bauer
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Sister Noon by Karen Joy Fowler
Wild Kingdom by Vijay Seshadri
War and Peace By Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch
Body Grammar by Jules Ohman
Killing Custer by James Welch
Penguin Problems Jory John
Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin illustrated by Daniel Salmieri
Mother Bruce Book Series by Ryan T. Higgins
Winter in the Blood by James Welch
Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Once Sentence Journal by Chris La Tray
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Doug Bauer Steps Up to Bat | The Book Case podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
