Rating: 
Summary: A HOME RUN
Review: Here is Kinsella at his very baseball best. It is Lewis Carrol on the basepaths, but instead of meeting the white rabbit or the red queen we meet Tinker and Evers and Chance. When you finish this book you will believe down in your heart of hearts--that it all really could be true
Rating:
Summary: The Magical Summer Game
Review: I cannot get enough of the way the author uses baseball to write stories that challenge the imag ination. Gideon Clarke takes over the quest of his late father to prove the 1908 Cubs travelled to Iowa to take on a local all star team. No one else remembers the game, nor is it in any records. Kinsella takes us through time and introduces us to not only the Cubs and the all stars but many other great characters. It is also a journey of great ramifications for Gideon's life. You do not have to be a Cub fan to enjoy this book. Just let your imagination carry you through this wonderful story. Please keep writing baseball stories Mr. Kinsella!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Midwest Magic Realism
Review: I first picked this up off the bookstore shelf because of that Kevin Costner movie that came out in 1989, but I knew Kinsella for his writing ability before that. What made me buy the book was the back cover's description of a baseball game that lasts over 2,000 innings and the protagonist's insistence that it really did happen.I wasn't disappointed, although I have to say that this novel doesn't offer the simple wish fulfillment of Shoeless Joe or the movie based on that novel. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy spends the first hundred or so pages describing how Gideon Clarke's father wrote a Master's thesis in History about a baseball league that noone else remembers, how the thesis was rejected and ruined his father's life, and how he (Gideon) inherited this "knowledge" of a non-existent league and this obsession upon his father's death. Gideon seems to be following the same fruitless path of trying to prove the existence of the mythical Iowa Baseball Confederacy, when the (un)expected happens: he's taken back to 1908 to see the events occur that have so far only existed in his and his father's memory. And then things get strange, in a bizarre and wonderful way: As the game stretches on, the flood waters rise higher, statues become animated, all manner of nature comes to life, love blooms, and the ballpark is repeatedly visited by Drifting Away, the Native American whose destiny is tied up with this small town in Iowa. While the plot of the novel resembled Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back, or T. Coraghessan Boyle's short story, "The Hector Quesadilla Story," The Iowa Baseball Confederacy reminded me of nothing so much as the Magic Realism fiction by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges. Indeed, at times, I felt like was reading a shorter version of Marquez' A Hundred Years of Solitude, only this time placed in the turn of the century American Midwest. I did say that this book is not about wish fulfillment like Kinsella's more famous Shoeless Joe, but I didn't consider this a weakness. The fantastic does occur in The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, but only with the caveat that fantasy doesn't always help one's reality. Kinsella does entertain the reader with all kinds of strange imaginings, but Gideon is still searching for fulfillment in the same ways that the rest of us do. Some may be disappointed with bittersweet quality of this book, but that same quality only makes the novel true to life. In spite of all the bizarre twists and turns of plot. And by the way, the game descriptions are wonderful reminders that baseball truly hasn't changed that much over the years.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: I just finished my sophomore year of college. I have had the Iowa Baseball Confederacy in my room forever but I waited until the semester was over to start reading it because I wanted to give it full attention. I read Shoeless Joe a couple of years ago and it is still my all-time favorite book. I went into this one with high expectations. However, they were not met. I just didn't like the characters, didn't care about them. The Plot seemed like a bunch of short stories together that made no sense. Magic is a key element in Kinsella stories. However, this one just seemed too fantastic. I don't know how players coming back from the dead in Shoeless Joe seemed more realistic than the time-travel, magic Indian, and the obsession with the game in the Iowa Baseball Confederacy, but it just does. The book is worth a read if you're a Kinsella Fan but don't waste your time otherwise. Read Shoeless Joe again.
Rating:
Summary: "It's August, look at the corn."
Review: I love books and I love baseball and I love the way W. P. Kinsella mixes fantasy with reality in his novels. I've known people who think there was simply a bit too much fantasy in THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY, but, for me, there wasn't. This is a more complicated story than SHOELESS JOE (on which the film, FIELD OF DREAMS was based), to be sure, but, like SHOELESS JOE, THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY contains magic. Not just magical realism, but magic. THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY begins when Matthew Clarke is struck by lightning. Coming to, he realizes that he "knows" something no one else knows: that on July 4, 1908, the Chicago Cubs played an almost 2000 inning game in Onamata, Iowa with a little known amateur team called the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Although, Matthew writes his Masters thesis on the game, everyone denies the existence of the Iowa Baseball Confederacy and Matthew can find no trace of it anywhere...but in his own mind. With his life seemingly in ruins, Matthew, in 1978, allows himself to be hit by a line drive, committing suicide. Matthew's death, however, doesn't mark the end of the search for the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Upon Matthew's death, his son, Gideon, discovers that he has "inherited" his father's memory of the game and must set out on a quest of his own to prove its existence. Gideon and his friend, Stan, know there must be some logical (or even illogical) reason why no one can remember this historic game or even the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. Together, they find a way to travel back to July 4, 1908 and watch the game, and learn the truth, themselves. What they see is nothing like what they expected. Involved are floods, a Native American and even Leonardo da Vinci, who floats by in a hot air balloon. And, Onamata was, in 1908, not called Onamata. The second half of THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY is filled with the strangest baseball game anyone will ever read about, anywhere, but it's certainly one I wouldn't have wanted to miss. W.P. Kinsella is an extraordinary writer and he's one of only a handful of writers who can really handle magical realism well. While his short stories are filled with melancholy and loss, his novels are a mix of the homespun, the real and the fantastic...and, more importantly, he pulls all of this together and makes us believe. The characters in THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY are very well drawn and I could really feel their hope and their pain. The subplot revolving around the minor league player who finally gets his one big chance is quite poignant and bittersweet. Kinsella successfully mixes fact and fiction in THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY. There are "real" people in this book: Bill Klem, Three Finger Brown and Frank Chance, and they only serve to help make the forty day game more real. While THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY is infused with just as much magic as SHOELESS JOE, it is a far denser story, with many more subplots. People needing a more straightforward story might be better off to stick with SHOELESS JOE. If I have one complaint about THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY, it's that the Biblical symbolism was a little too heavy for me. But it wasn't so heavy as to reduce this book from a five star read to a four star one. No one writes about baseball or the people involved with the game better than W.P. Kinsella. I would definitely recommend THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY to anyone who loves baseball and can suspend his or her disbelief long enough to let a little magic into his life. It will certainly be worth it.
Rating:
Summary: I saw and read Field of Dreams - wish for a movie of IBF!
Review: I loved the movie "Field of Dreams" and its book "Shoeless Joe", and I wanted to read more. I stumbled upon "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy" and I was totally taken in. I have taken my son and my dad to Dyersville, Iowa to see the "Field's" moviesite, and I feel that someday, we may visit and see a rail spur leading into a distant fog..................................WHAT A BASEBALL FANTASY BOOK !
Rating:
Summary: A Super Baseball Book
Review: I re-read this book at the start of every major league baseball season and learn more from it each time. Throw away "Ball Four" and "The Boys of Summer" if you wish -----If you could keep only one baseball book, this should be it. It takes us back to a time when life was much more simple, and we were all closer to the land and the real game of baseball. And, I might add, a time when pitchers could go more than 6 innings without calling to the bullpen for a set-up man and closer---how about a thousand or two thousand innings? I fully agree with one of the other reviewers thaat this would make a wonderful baseball movie ---a fine follow-up to Field of Dreams. Enjoy! Earl Finkler, Barrow, Alaska
Rating: 
Summary: He swings and misses
Review: In purchasing this novel I had hoped to be entertained as much as I was when I watched 'Field of Dreams' the adaptation of one of Kinsella's other novels. I enjoyed 'Field of Dreams' so much, and enjoy baseball even more. That story moved me enough to indeed visit the movie site, as Terrence Mann says for reasons they do not understand. But I found that though this book was about a game which lasted over 2100 innings it had little to do with baseball. It reminded me of something bordering on the works of Stephen King. I found that I had little sympathy for Gideon Clarke, or any of his fellow travelers. There is very little baseball action, the diamond only serves as a backdrop for this sorry character's flawed life. A novel it is, but not a baseball novel. Sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Baseball Fever
Review: It normally takes me a month or more to finish a book due to time constraints and a busy schedule, but I cruised through this one in about a week. I don't want to give anything away so I won't speak of plot summary. If you like baseball, magic, and craziness, this book is for you. This was my first Kinsella book. I bought Shoeless Joe half way through and I can't wait to read it. Then, I will finally break down and see "Field of Dreams".
Rating:
Summary: Baseball Fever
Review: It normally takes me a month or more to finish a book due to time constraints and a busy schedule, but I cruised through this one in about a week. I don't want to give anything away so I won't speak of plot summary. If you like baseball, magic, and craziness, this book is for you. This was my first Kinsella book. I bought Shoeless Joe half way through and I can't wait to read it. Then, I will finally break down and see "Field of Dreams".
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