>>>And finally, here's a Canadian author for you - Paul Quarrington. His "Home Game" is another that I've read a number of times. I never get tired of it. A beautiful, funny, touching book. And a baseball book every bit as good as Kinsella's "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy".
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>>Don't know Whittemore but putting him on the research list now. Don't know Quarrington either but remember I have a thing about baseball - my eyes glaze over at the very thought of it.
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>It's only sort of about baseball. It's really about people. The game takes place between a religious sect (The House of Jonah) and a group of sideshow folks. If the sideshow folks win, they get to stay in an open field, if not, they get kicked out of town. Nathanael "Crybaby" Isbister is arguably the greatest ballplayer who ever lived and he's playing for the sideshow. On the other hand, Tekel Ambrose, the leader of the sect is arguably the greatest ballplayer who ever lived, and he, of course, plays for the house of Jonah. One of my all-time favourite books.

OK, I'll reconsider. <s> He goes on the list.

>>The Jerusalem Quartet reminded me of a true favorite of my youth : the Alexandria Quartet - Justine, Balthazar, Montolive and Clea by Laurence Durrell. They hold a particular place in my heart as I read them all when hanging out with the Levantines in Izmir and Beirut, but I think they hold up as literature.
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>Maybe I'll take a shot. Trouble is the first thing I read (or should say "tried" to read) by Durrell was his Revolt of Aphrodite (Tunc and Nunquam) and found them insufferably boring. I couldn't finish. So I never tried to read the Alexandria Quartet.
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Completely agree Tunc was a snooze. The only Durrell I recommend are the Quartet and Reflections on a Marine Venus ( which I think I actually read on San Torini and Rhodos. )

I will say I haven't revisited any of them in years, so it may very well be they just spoke to me at a particular period in time when I was particularly obsessed with romanticising my own life. The years in the Mediterranean included reading a lot of Byron and Katzanzakis and John Fowles and Richard Burton and wearing a Greek fisherman's hat, smoking Gitanes and drinking raki. I have almost been afraid to reread a lot of the stuff I was reading then for fear it would be like being confronted with love letters I wrote in college <bg>

Here's a more current choice - Craig McDonald. Head Games and Toros & Torsos

The former involves Prescott Bush funding a quest for Pancho Villa's skull for Skull and Bones at Yale, the later begins in Key West in 1935 and involves Hemingway, Dos Passos, the Surrealists, Spain in 37, Hollywood and HUAC in the 50s etc. Fun stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Craig-McDonald/e/B002BLFFQU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1