Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville
It’s a collection of Gould’s baseball writings over the years — and a disappointment as such. He’s a wonderful writer, ordinarily, and I loved his contributions to the Ken Burns series, but because this is a series of essays and not one longer book, he repeats a lot of phrasings and references; the Joe DiMaggio well, for one, is just about dry. I don’t want to warn anyone off Gould, but this book isn’t a success, at least not if you read the essays all right in a row. (3/18/04)
Tags: books