A Study Guide for W. P. Kinsella's "The Thrill of Grass," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
From the author of Shoeless Joe—the basis for the film Field of Dreams—come baseball stories that capture the magic and wonder of the game. No one can write about baseball with the same brilliant combination of mysticism and realism as W. P. Kinsella. Lovers of the game and lovers of fine writing will thrill at the range and depth of the eleven stories that make up this collection. From the magical conspiracy of the title story, to the celestial prediction in “The Last Pennant Before Armageddon,” to the desolation of “The Baseball Spur,” Kinsella explores the world of baseball and makes it, miraculously, a microcosm of the human condition. Praise for W. P. Kinsella’s The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories “[Kinsella] defines a world in which magic and reality combine to make us laugh and think about the perceptions we take for granted.” —The New York Times “His short stories about baseball are wistful things of beauty which serve to remind us how the game should feel—the innate glory of a diamond etched in the minds of Americans.” —Calgary Sun “[Kinsella] uses baseball . . . As a familiar starting place for exploring, with pinpoint control, the human psyche.” —Booklist “Stories that read like lightning and tantalize the reader with fascinating scenarios.” —Publishers Weekly
The novel that inspired Field of Dreams: “A lyrical, seductive, and altogether winning concoction.” —The New York Times Book Review One of Sports Illustrated’s 100 Greatest Sports Books “If you build it, he will come.” When Ray Kinsella hears these mysterious words spoken in the voice of an Iowa baseball announcer, he is inspired to carve a baseball diamond in his cornfield. It is a tribute to his hero, the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose reputation was forever tarnished by the scandalous 1919 World Series. What follows is a timeless story that is “not so much about baseball as it is about dreams, magic, life, and what is quintessentially American” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). “A triumph of hope.” —The Boston Globe “A moonlit novel about baseball, dreams, family, the land, and literature.” —Sports Illustrated
From the author of the sensational bestselling Sophie Kinsella novels and the New York Times bestsellers The Wedding Girl and Sleeping Arrangements, comes a wicked comedy of adultery, angst, and modern marriage The asking price for this house includes a stunning renovation of hearts and dreams....Liz and Jonathan Chambers were stuck with two mortgages, mounting debts, and a miserable adolescent daughter. Then realtor Marcus Witherstone came into their lives—and it seemed he would solve all their problems. He knew the perfect tenants from London who would rent their old house: a glamorous PR girl, Ginny, and her almost-famous husband, Piers. But soon Liz is lost in blissful dreams of Marcus, Jonathan is left to run their business, and neither of them has time to notice that their teenage daughter is developing an unhealthy passion for the tenants, Piers and Ginny. Everyone is tangled up with everyone else, and in the most awkward possible way. As events close in, they all begin to realize that some deceptions are just a bit too close to home. A Desirable Residence is sure to continue the phenomenal success of the Sophie Kinsella/Madeleine Wickham franchise.
With the warmth and humor we've come to know, the creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion shares his own remarkable story. In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures. PHC lasted forty-two years, 1,557 shows, and enjoyed the freedom to do as it pleased for three or four million listeners every Saturday at 5 p.m. Central. He got to sing with Emmylou Harris and Renée Fleming and once sang two songs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He played a private eye and a cowboy, gave the news from his hometown, Lake Wobegon, and met Somali cabdrivers who’d learned English from listening to the show. He wrote bestselling novels, won a Grammy and a National Humanities Medal, and made a movie with Robert Altman with an alarming amount of improvisation. He says, “I was unemployable and managed to invent work for myself that I loved all my life, and on top of that I married well. That’s the secret, work and love. And I chose the right ancestors, impoverished Scots and Yorkshire farmers, good workers. I’m heading for eighty, and I still get up to write before dawn every day.”
Here are his notorious First Nation narratives of indigenous Canadians, and a literary homage to J. D. Salinger. Alongside the "real" story of the 1951 Giants and the afterlife of Roberto Clemente, are the legends of a pirated radio station and a hockey game rigged by tribal magic.
Stories, essays, poems, and personal reminiscences from the sage of Lake Wobegon When, at thirteen, he caught on as a sportswriter for the Anoka Herald, Garrison Keillor set out to become a professional writer, and so he has done—a storyteller, sometime comedian, essayist, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, poet. Now a single volume brings together the full range of his work: monologues from A Prairie Home Companion, stories from The New Yorker and The Atlantic, excerpts from novels, newspaper columns. With an extensive introduction and headnotes, photographs, and memorabilia, The Keillor Reader also presents pieces never before published, including the essays “Cheerfulness” and “What We Have Learned So Far.” Keillor is the founder and host of A Prairie Home Companion, celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2014. He is the author of nineteen books of fiction and humor, the editor of the Good Poems collections, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
At the age of eighteen, in that first golden Oxford summer, Milly was up for anything, and that included marrying her American friend Allan, so he could stay in the country with his lover Rupert.
This anthology brings together 28 exceptional short stories about the great game of baseball. Written over several decades by some of America's famous writers, many of the stories are about the game itself; others use baseball as a backdrop for timeless themes, such as morality, greed, and love. All of them pay tribute to a game that has merged with America's national identity.
