Rating: 
Summary: Uggghhhh
Review: I liked the movie "Field of Dreams", and I think there's a lot of good stuff here. But the writing is just horrible most of the time. Way too overblown. The main character is much more of a fanatic that he was in the movie. Also, every time this guy talks about his wife, it's like fingernails slowly running down a chalk board. It's the prose equivalent of having to sit there while a couple makes out in front of you and make kissy faces at each other. Yes, we understand that you think she's the sexiest thing in a pair of jeans. We get it already.
Rating: 
Summary: Ray Kinsella and his field of dreams
Review: Shoeless Joe is a great book about how if you work hard towards a goal, you have a good chance of fullfilling it. Ray Kinsella is a very strong man. Not physically but mentally. He hears an announcer make a statement fo which ray follows. When Ray Kinsella built it, Shoeless Joe came. As he worked harder, more and more people came. This book is a great book about how if you follow your dreams, and the voice of a baseball announcer, you might end up with an amazing finish.
Rating:
Summary: Anyone who reads this will love Baseball
Review: I grew up watching Field of Dreams. I remember the remakes on the commerical from Baseball tonight. I can quote Terrance Mann's speech by heart. But this book blew my mind away. I finished reading it while waiting to have my tires rotated and I was sucking back my tears like always from Salinger's speech. Not only do I recommend the movie, I strongly recommend that any baseball fan have this book on their shelf or on their toliet to read whenever they need inspiration or motivation. For WP Kinsella to write about something as trival as baseball (which i have loved from the moment i was born) baseball which in a society like ours should be the least important thing on a very long list, and for Kinsella to write about a baseball game in a cornfield and for it to stir such emotions even in the blackest hearts of some people is quite a feet. Truly, a must have, along with the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Dreams brought to life...
Review: The 1919 Chicago White Sox form the backdrop of this mystical book about bringing dreams to life. Shoeless Joe is much more than a book about baseball, it is about having a dream and pursuing it with a passion. Of course, baseball fans (like myself) will love how Kinsella uses the game to bring to life the characters and the truth of living life fully, without hesitation. Kinsella's use of language creates grand pictures within the reader's mind and is an absolute joy. I highly recommend this book for baseball fans and students of life.
Rating:
Summary: Very Much Not the Movie
Review: I saw "Field of Dreams" the year it came out, and read "Shoeless Joe" several months later. I was in high school at the time, deep into my obsession with baseball books (the Mets were having an off-year). I pounded through W.P. Kinsella's novel in days, then moved on to "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy", which freaked me out a little, and I never read Kinsella again. Flash forward 13 years. I chanced to see "Field of Dreams" on TV (the TBS "Dinner and a Movie" version) while marooned in a hotel during a business trip -- it was that, or watch Monica Lewinsky's "Mr. Personality". I hadn't seen the movie in a few years, and was struck by how passionate it was about the 1960s. The film's Kinsellas are hippie-era college protestors, and the script is drenched with '60s radical authors (the film's Terrence Mann) and a very lively debate about book burning. None of that's from the book. The novel's central idea is the same -- an Iowa farmer hears "a voice" (a PA announcer, not a dreamy whisper voiced by "Himself", as the film's credits have us believe), plows under his corn and builds a baseball diamond from the Earth. The diamond remains derelict until Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the disgraced 1919 World Series-fixing Chicago Black Sox come to play ball. Add to the mix a small-town doctor whose major league career lasted 5 minutes, and a famously reclusive writer lured out of his shell by a love for the game. But then also add into that mix an identical twin who's a carnival barker for circus freaks, and a senile farmer whose life is built around the lie that he once played baseball for the Tinker-to-Evers-Chance era Chicago Cubs... here's the stuff not incorporated into the screenplay. Neither are Kinsella or his wife '60s revolutionaries; they're just dreamers in their 20s. It's Kinsella (the author)'s writing style that grates, more than anything else. Try as I might, I could never warm up to Kinsella (the character)'s penchant to think in dreamy Earth metaphors, or to speak in poetic paragraphs. His wife is described almost entirely by her bedroom habits. "Shoeless Joe" is as much about family as about baseball, but by the time the identical twin brother shows up (and there are still 50 pages to go), I found myself flipping ahead to hurry up and get to the point. "Field of Dreams" is an excellent movie, with a focused message and lively dialogue. "Shoeless Joe" I will call an acquired taste, because you'll need to make a mental adjustment to the writing style, which is more syrupy than "literary". One historical sidebar: Kinsella convinces J.D. Salinger to go to a Twins-Red Sox game at Fenway Park. He describes the game in convincing detail -- who played, who homered, who pitched for Boston (Mike Torrez, who after 1978 also became a mythological figure, whose ghost will one day populate a baseball movie filmed in the year 2050). And it's all fake! No game like this was ever played in 1979, the year Kinsella sets the novel. This has no signficance to anything but I was impressed by the effort. We never learn how that game ends -- Kinsella slams his head into a concrete beam, and spends the final innings in the infirmary. "Shoeless Joe" may be a spiritual fantasy, but I'm quite certain that this is the one scene in the book based on actual fact!
Rating:
Summary: The greatest book ever written?
Review: You know all those boring-as-watching-paint-dry books that English teachers were always trying to tell you were wonderful and the best book ever written? Well,(surprise,surprise) they were wrong. In my opinion, the greatest book ever written wasn't by Solzhenitsyn or Dickens or anyone of those authors, but by W P Kinsella. This book was made into the film 'Field of Dreams'. It was a good movie, but they cut a lot of the book out and the film (obviously) loses the writer's wonderfully descriptive and gentle style. 'Shoeless Joe' is, simply, an incredible book.
Rating:
Summary: A Review
Review: WHen I first began reading Shoeless Joe, I didn't like it. It wasn't the story, but Kinsella's style. Some of the things the characters say just seem unwieldy/out of place, especially Annie's "oh love." Once I adjusted to Kinsella's style, however, I absolutely loved this book. It's a must read for any baseball fan. It has everything baseball is supposed to be about-great players, great fields, dedication, determination, etc. The only gripe I had with the book was Annie's phrase "oh, love." Even when I adjusted to Kinsella's style, it still always seemed like it was a contrived phrase and it's the one part of this novel that is unbelievable (just the phrase-not the whole Annie character). KInsella makes you believe that there really are ancient ballplayers playing in Ray Kinsella's cornfield.
Rating:
Summary: If You Build It ....
Review: This book has inspired me to do what I really love doing. And over the years, as a result of my creating and living the vision that I have aspired to be in, many people are coming to me, to be part of what I am so passionate about. This is a wonderful book for anyone to read, rather you admire baseball or not. It's about being visionary, loving life, and being loved for your willingness to take the risks that it takes to make your dreams into your realities. By your working through the "obstacles" to get to where you want to be, others naturally want to share in your passion, because it is so beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: The book itself is good overall and is a story that all baseball fans should read. This book is a reading level that 12 years of age and older could read, and when you do, you will get tied up in reading it all the time. At first when you start reading, you might think that it's a boring book, but you shouldn't stop because it gets better. The book starts off with Ray Kinsella, the main character, hearing a voice saying, "If you build it, he will come." This meant that if Ray built a baseball feild, Shoeless Joe Jackson would come. These words inspired him to do so, and he did.
The reason this book was appealing to me was because I am into baseball myself. I think anyone could enjoy this book, baseball fan or not.
Rating:
Summary: Shoeless Joe
Review: The book Shoeless Joe is the base for Field of Dreams. Shoeless Joe is a great book from him watching his father hood hero to him playing catch wiht his dad.
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