13. The Art of Fielding

By Chad Hardbach (544 pp)(ebook)

This book was highly recommended to me and I was a little disconcerted to see it came out in 2011. Yikes. And no doubt there are books that have been in line even longer. This one is about Henry, a baseball star recruited to a small college in Michigan. Other characters include his teammate Mike, who is a complex guy, the head of the college, Affenlight who makes some very poor choices, Henry's roommate Owen and Affenlight's daughter Pella. Great writing. All the characters have a lot going on. I had to shake my head a bit at some of the developments but overall: really loved this book.