Doug Bauer has written a love story, "The Beckoning World". A man and a woman. A father and son. A love for a more innocent time. A lovely homage to America’s midwest. And a love story about baseball. It’s a simple book really—until it’s not. Boy meets girl. Boy is a promising pitcher. Girl's father says, "You pick: my daughter or baseball." He picks the girl. But then the book veers back to baseball and the protagonist pitcher and his son are barnstorming across America with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Sound implausible? Doug makes it seem perfectly reasonable. The Beckoning World is evocative of the early 20th century, conjures up small town baseball parks (you can almost smell the peanuts), and makes you feel like you know the Babe and Lou. Especially the Babe.
And speaking of small towns, this week’s bookstore is Fact and Fiction in Missoula, Montana. Give it all a listen.
Books mentioned in this podcast:

The Beckoning World by Douglas Bauer

The Book of Famous Iowans by Douglas Bauer

The Very Air by Douglas Bauer

Dexterity by Douglas Bauer

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Sister Noon by Karen Joy Fowler

Wild Kingdom by Vijay Seshadri

War and Peace By Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch

Body Grammar by Jules Ohman

Killing Custer by James Welch

Penguin Problems Jory John

Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin illustrated by Daniel Salmieri

Mother Bruce Book Series by Ryan T. Higgins

Winter in the Blood by James Welch

Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Once Sentence Journal by Chris La Tray