The Art of Fielding: A Novel

I wanted to like this book - and the writer has wonderful prose - but I just didn't fall in the love any character nor did the story line captivate me. I did like the narrator, but I wouldn't recommend this one. There are too many great books to read via audio, and this isn't one of them.

You have to be kidding me. After reading the reviews on this book I couldn't wait to check it out . What a disappointment. The writing style is juvenile, the characters are paper thin and there is nothing remotely believable or insightful. With so many quality writers out there, how did this one get so much press? I rarely give up on a book more than half way in but this one forced me to.

Despite all the positive reviews I found this book disappointing. Flat narration, stilted dialogue and indifferent characters come to mind. I think this was the first audiobook I just couldn't finish, although I really tried.

No

I am not sure. Although I did not care for the narrator, the book really did not help.

Dislike. I just kept dreading going back to it...

Although somewhat simple with some of the writing amateurish and predictable, I found the overall story entertaining and fun. I looked forward to each listening session and was usually quite entertained. The reader was excellent, and his character depiction very good.

Based on the high acclaim this book received, I thought it would be a fantastic story. However, I was disappointed. It had a generic, boring story, that didn't hold my interest.

In spite of the rave reviews this book, though very well written (and very well read), takes a cliched plot-line and drives it relentlessly into the ground. Underdog college team with diamond-in-the-rough shortstop prevails against all odds without much adult supervision. The characters are all one-dimensional, the only female in the novel is a mere plot convenience, rolled in and out of the story with mechanical indifference to her presumptive role. Ethically, the novel is a mess. A college president forms a homosexual relationship with a student, and except for some administrative wrist-slapping towards the end, the novel steadily keeps a blind eye on the grotesque power-relationship it is describing. (Put priest in place of president and see if you think well of the book.) Even worse, the novel tries to place itself on the same shelf as Moby Dick! I gather that the author is an admirer of Franzen's Freedom, another novel much praised in spite of its sloshing superficialities.

I should mention that I remain a devoted baseball fan in spite of my reaction here.

I simply don't know how this book made the top 20 books of the year on Amazon. I found it to be super boring and needlessly verbose. I wish that I could get the time back that I wasted listening to this book!

My sis-in-law recommended this book to me and then after I purchased it informed me she hadn't even read it, just thought since I'm a sports fan I would like it. Well, it was an interesting story, the thought that kept coming to my mind was life mirrors baseball or is it that baseball mirros life? Set in NE Wisconsin at a fictituous college on Lake Michigan there were plenty of intersting characters in a setting with college baseball in the background, some of the charaters are players, others sort of around the program. I believe this was the author's first book and it was well written. It wasn't a thriller or page turner by any means but it was interesting enough to keep your interest, if anything it was intellectual. And, you don't really have to be a baseball fan to enjoy the book.

Wonderful book about life and love of baseball, literature (Moby Dick again), and family/friends, tradition and our commitments to each other.

Part coming of age, and also an examination of what is failure. Great characters and atmosphere.

My love of baseball, literature and great characters made this book a lot of fun for me.

I've heard great things about this book but the narrator's repetitive, unwavering cadence never allows me to lose myself in the story. I'm two or three hours in and considering abandoning it. Mr. Graham's delivery chops up the sentences into an odd, sing-song iambic pentameter. A terrible shame since most Audible narrators are so skilled at enhancing a book, not diminishing it.