Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: Its pretty difficult to put this book in a genre. Sports novel? There's a 2,000 inning game in here. Mythology? The characters seem plenty real to me. Lets just say that it belongs in the genre of books that defy classification.
I'm not sure whats so great about this book. I guess its just the fact that when Kinsella says there was this totally fantastic event, you believe him. Who knows why? The man is an amazing writer, and this proves it. By the way, if you are a teacher by all means, assign this book to your class instead of the tired old 19th century british class warfare novel.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best american novels
Review: Its pretty difficult to put this book in a genre. Sports novel? There's a 2,000 inning game in here. Mythology? The characters seem plenty real to me. Lets just say that it belongs in the genre of books that defy classification.
I'm not sure whats so great about this book. I guess its just the fact that when Kinsella says there was this totally fantastic event, you believe him. Who knows why? The man is an amazing writer, and this proves it. By the way, if you are a teacher by all means, assign this book to your class instead of the tired old 19th century british class warfare novel.
Rating:
Summary: A magical adventure
Review: Kinsella has a quality that is hard to describe, but can best be understood by reading his literature. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy is quite a remarkable book. It wraps you up in the magic of the game, and the mystical quality that Kinsella dusts every corner of the story with including the unusual religious characters, historical figures and humorous twists and turns. I truly enjoyed this book. I found it an easy and enjoyable read, and the plot interesting enough to capture my heart and inspire me as a reader.
Rating:
Summary: The greatest baseball novel of all-time!
Review: Kinsella really captures what baseball was truly about in its golden-age. The author's fertile imagination creates some of the most interesting characters I have ever come across, like a fifteen-foot tall Indian or a statue playing right-field. The era is also very well recreated.All in all, a classic novel of baseball and life. A must read for all baseball fans!
Rating:
Summary: Kinsella's Finest
Review: THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY is the finest ode to the mysteries of life ever to centre around baseball. W.P. Kinsella's name has become synonymous with his love for the sport, and sometimes it can become overwhelming. His short stories have a tendency to push the sentimentality over the edge into the realm of muadlin. Here, however, the mix is perfect. Gideon Clarke has a problem. Ever since his father died, he has become obsessed with the Iowa Baseball Confederacy, a league that never existed, except in his mind. Or so it seems. Over the course of his searchings (and he does find the league), Gideon also relates the problems he has with reality, his destructive relationship with his wife, and his theories of temporal displacement and rips in the fabric of time. Kinsella here achieves a mastery of the genre of magical realism, on par with the terrific LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE. As Gideon continues on his quest, events around him get more and more bizarre, until a town is slowly flooded, a wooden Indian bats cleanup, home runs never come back down to earth, and baseball games never end. In other hands, this mixture of whimsy and fantasy would leave the reader cold and confused, but Kinsella never falters. The more strange things get, the more Gideon becomes the rock we hold onto, and his willingness to accept the things he cannot understand, his sheer joy at the absudity of his situation, ensures that the reader will follow him to the ends of the Earth, if need be. THE IOWA BASEBALL CONFEDERACY is a wonderful book, and that's something, coming from someone who rejects a typical fantasy novel from the book cover alone. Lovers of fantasy should read this. Lovers of baseball should read this. Lovers of life should read this. Lovers of great stories should read this.
Rating:
Summary: A delicious lesson in abracadabra, a potion in print...
Review: They say certain words said in just the right way have magical properties. W. P. Kinsella proves this true. The Iowa Baseball Confederacy is a delicious lesson in abracadabra, a potion in print that cures the bored reader blues. He takes the agonies and ecstacies of love, mixes them with the power of lightning, sprinkles in the legends of summer and baseball and POOF - out comes one of the best books ever written. Don't read this if you want to get away from the everyday world. Read it to find the magic you've been missing (but that your heart always knew was there)
Rating:
Summary: W. P. Kinsella's best baseball book
Review: This book reveals the depth of character that can be attained simply by being a baseball fan
Rating:
Summary: The Spirit of the Game Brought to Life
Review: This is a magnificent book, in so many ways. I've never been a sports fan of any kind, but after casually picking this book up -- without being able to put it down until far into the night, when I finished it -- I became entranced with the essence of the game which Kinsella captures so well. This is one of the best fantasy novels I've read. It has something for everyone -- time travel, turn-of-the-century Americana, humor, mysticism, moments of High Weirdness, and, throughout, the power, mystery and symbolism of America's Game. I loved "Field of Dreams", the film adapted from Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe" [another must-read], and I can only hope to see IBC follow the same path. One reading, however, will engrain the characters and plot in your imagination as no film can. And guess who became a brand-new baseball fan? :)
Rating:
Summary: Holy Cow!
Review: This is an excellent story - vividly told - about when the Chicago Cubs came to play the All Stars from a Confederation of regional Iowa amateur baseball teams on July 4th, 1908 - or did they? It's 1978 and all mention of the Confederation and the game has been erased from written history, although vague memories remain with some of the elder residents of the region. Gideon Clarke chafes at being called an albino. "My hair is usually shoulder length, white as vanilla ice cream, which makes it difficult for me to appear inconspicuous. I am not an albino, for though my skin lacks pigmentation, my eyes have color: a pale, translucent blue." His sister "was born in 1944, and was, in some prophetic manner, named Enola Gay, a full year before the bomber droned over Hiroshima, its womb bursting with destruction." She became an early "Urban Guerilla" and hasn't been seen since. Upon his father's death by line drive at Milwaukee County Stadium, ("It's too bad there are no Hallmark cards saying 'Sorry you we're killed by a foul ball,'") Gideon magically inherits his father's knowledge of, and obsession with, the Iowa Baseball Confederacy and "The Game." Along the journey to vindicate his father, Gideon and his friend Stan, a struggling but eternally optimistic farm club player, travel back in time and encounter many wondrous folk, including the Native American, Drifts Away (that's him up in the clouds on the poster-quality illustration on the front cover.) Even Leonardo da Vinci and President Theodore Roosevelt make cameo appearances. Teddy takes a turn at bat and says: "I venture to say this gives new meaning to my credo 'Speak softly, but carry a big stick.'" It's a magical mystical tour, during which the reader is treated to many replays of the famous litany: "Tinker to Evers to Chance" and learns how a time-traveler figures out what time it is in Iowa. "What day do you think it is? Is it July 4th, or forty days later?" Answer: "It's August - look at the corn. " Enjoy this book by the author who also wrote "Shoeless Joe," upon which the movie "Field of Dreams" was based, and remember: Harry Caray is calling baseball in Heaven and all is right with the world.
Rating:
Summary: The Iowa Baseball Confederacy
Review: This was one of the funnest (is that a word?) books I've ever read. I rarely find a book that builds a story like this one. Kinsella has a gift of weaving reality and fantasy back and forth until you aren't sure what is or isn't possible. The story begins very much rooted in reality then slowly creeps into a fantasy world where baseball is no longer just a game, but quite literally becomes a religion, complete with choirs and lighting bolts from heaven. I actually noticed my heart beating faster as the games intensity built, I think it was around the 1700th inning. That's right 1700th. Read this book if you love baseball. Read this book if you don't, you won't be disapointed.
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