My Favorite Sports Fiction and a Couple of Others
Discover top sports fiction books with our curated list of favorites, including must-read novels that capture the thrill of the game. Perfect for fans of athletic drama and inspiring stories.
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The Great American Novel
by Philip Roth
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Pastoral—a richly imagined novel featuring America’s only homeless big-league baseball team in history delivers “shameless comic extravagance…. Roth gleefully exploits our readiness to let baseball stand for America itself" (The New York Times). Gil Gamesh, the only pitcher who ever literally tried to kill the umpire. The ex-con first baseman, John Baal, "The Babe Ruth of the Big House," who never hit a home run sober. If you've never heard of them—or of the homeless baseball team the Ruppert Mundys—it's because of the Communist plot, and the capitalist scandal, that expunged the entire Patriot League from baseball memory. In this ribald, wickedly satiric novel, Roth turns baseball's status as national pastime and myth into an occasion for unfettered picaresque farce, replete with heroism and perfidy, ebullient wordplay and a cast of characters that includes the House Un-American Activities Committee.
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Semi-Tough
by Dan JENKINS
"Dan Jenkins is a comic genius."--Don Imus Made into a hilarious and timeless film starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh, and recently named number seven on Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time, Semi-Tough is Dan Jenkins's masterpiece and considered by many to be the funniest sports book ever written. The novel follows the outsize adventures of Billy Clyde Puckett, star halfback for the New York Giants, whose team has come to Los Angeles for an epic duel with the despised "dog-ass" Jets in the Super Bowl. But Billy Clyde is faced with a dual challenge: not only must he try to run over a bunch of malevolents incarnate, but he has also been commissioned by a New York book publisher to keep a journal of the events leading up to, including, and following the game. Infused with Dan Jenkins's characteristic joie de vivre and replete with cigarettes, whiskey, and wild women, Semi-Tough is an uproarious romp through a lost era of professional sports that will have any armchair quarterback falling out of his or her recliner in hysterics on a semi-regular basis.
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The Iowa Baseball Confederacy
by W. P. Kinsella
From the author of the bestselling "Shoeless Joe" comes another vintage baseball tale that "like magic . . . holds together and entices you from one page to the next, until at the end you ache for more" ("Milwaukee Journal").
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Shoeless Joe
by W. P. Kinsella
Inspiration for the movie "Field of Dreams, Shoeless Joe" is the ultimate baseball novel.
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Eight Men Out
by Eliot Asinof
"The most thorough investigation of the Black Sox scandal on record . . . A vividly, excitingly written book."--Chicago Tribune
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The Natural
by Bernard Malamud
Malamud uses the fanatical and aggressive world of professional baseball to mirror contemporary society.
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Bang the Drum Slowly
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A poignant portrayal of professional ballplayers' lives on and off the field during the sport's golden years in the 1950's.
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The Kid from Tomkinsville
by John Roberts Tunis
As the newest addition to the Brooklyn Dodgers, young Roy Tucker's pitching helps pull the team out of a slump; but, when a freak accident ends his career as a pitcher, he must try to find another place for himself on the team. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.
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Dead Solid Perfect
by Dan Jenkins
The legendary golf novel, rereleased in a special edition with a new foreword by the author. Don Imus said it best: "Dan Jenkins is a comic genius." And nowhere is that genius more evident than in Dead Solid Perfect, his uproarious 1974 novel about life on the PGA Tour. To some, Kenny Lee Puckett, the star of Jenkins's ribald saga, is a more important figure in the history of golf than Bobby Jones himself.