February recap and March preview
In an effort to read more in 2025, this series is dedicated to a monthly recap of what we at TGP have been reading each month. Feel free to add what’s on your TBR below!
February Home Runs
Title: The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
Author: Wayne Coffey
TGP Contributor: Brian McQuilkin
Synopsis: In Lake Placid, New York, during the 1980 Winter Olympics, a hodge-podge gang of American amateur hockey players faced off against the Russians, who were arguably the fiercest and most disciplined team in the world. Coffey takes us into the lives of the players and coaches, then and now, while providing an intense play by play of what became known as the Miracle on Ice.
Review: This year marks the 45th anniversary of the U.S. team’s victory at Lake Placid, and their eventual gold medal win, so I wound up re-reading it this month (well, I listened to the audiobook this time). Coffey interweaves the course of the game with stories of its key characters, each of whom are remarkably interesting and sometimes tragic. The writing is excellent, and from the first page you fall into the narrative, gripped by the daunting and seemingly impossible feat with which the team is tasked: to take down the unstoppable Russian machine that was their hockey team. This is one of those rare books where you can’t wait for the conclusion and yet want the book to keep going. You don’t need to love sports to love this book. If you only read one book this year, you should consider reading a lot more.
Title: The Natural
Author: Bernard Malamud
TGP Contributor: Jared Frank
Synopsis: Years after his major-league dreams are put on hold by a stalker’s gunshot, Roy Hobbs attempts to achieve immortality by hoisting his handmade bat, Wonderboy, for the New York Knights.
Review: The movie adaptation is a feel-good story. The original book decidedly isn’t. All the same pieces are there, but whereas Robert Redford’s Hobbs grins widely, Malamud’s scowls. The Roy Hobbs of the book is a creature of desperation and appetite; he looks at a baseball like a starving lion looks at a gazelle, knowing that he must either kill it or die himself. He’s constantly in a bad mood, suspicious and sour over not being given what he feels he deserves. He’s hard to like, but his breakneck race to become a baseball legend is endlessly compelling to read about. The Natural offers very little of the charming Americana that the movie adaptation does, but in exchange it offers a piercing story of ego that the film lacks. This is not to say that the movie ought to be ignored in favor of the original text. If you put the two together, you’d have a fairly complete picture of America’s pastime itself, in all its capacity for both ugliness and beauty.
Title: Ashley Bell
Author: Dean Koontz
TGP Contributor: Smarty Jones
Synopsis: After being miraculously cured from cancer, Bibi Blair is sent on a mysterious quest to rescue a girl named Ashley Bell.
Review: As a longtime reader of Koontz, this one seemed boilerplate at first. An everyman – or in this case woman – is thrust into an adventure where she has to face off against shadowy foes, and there’s both a twinge of the supernatural and a dog involved. It actually felt too boilerplate at times, as if it could have been titled “Generic Dean Koontz Novel.”
And then halfway through, you realize that the plot was intended to seem generic, and Koontz is likely having some fun in subverting expectations. If you’re not a regular Koontz reader, you’ll probably find this enjoyable enough, but it feels like this one was written with a nod (and maybe a smirk) to Koontz loyalists.
Books that Struck Out
Title: 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid
Author: John Shea and Willie Mays
TGP Contributor: Allie
Synopsis: 24 stories of inspirations, influences, and reflections on Willie Mays’s career.
Review: I’ll quote a review left on Goodreads: “Willie Mays did the impossible on the baseball field and John Shea has done the impossible by writing a boring book about the greatest baseball player of all time.” Shea clearly did a lot of research and put significant time and effort into not only diving into Mays’s life and career but going beyond what’s already been shared, finding new stories and getting new quotes from players, coaches and managers. I respect that, for sure. But by about half way through, every story began to sound the same. To put it kindly, this book was boring. Don’t waste your time.
On Deck for March
Title: The Sportsworld of the Hanshin Tigers: Professional Baseball in Modern Japan
Author: William W. Kelly
TGP Contributor: Jared Frank
Synopsis: An anthropologist explores the culture of Japanese baseball and its fans through the Hanshin Tigers, one of NPB’s most beloved, passionately supported, and snakebitten clubs.
Preview: I’m of the opinion that every baseball fan owes it to themselves to see a game in Japan: you can see some of NPB’s greatest stars in MLB uniforms, but actually making the trip grants you access to the joys of seeing how ballparks and their fans differ across the ocean. You’ll see Munetaka Murakami in MLB soon enough, for instance, but for the chance to serenade him with the Swallows fans’ umbrella dance while drinking draft beer poured seatside from a backpack keg, you’ll have to see his team in Tokyo. But while I’ve had the chance to see a Japanese ballgame, I haven’t had the chance to visit the legendary Koshien Stadium, just over 100 years old and host to the Hanshin Tigers and their famously fervent fans. Until I get the chance to travel again, I’ll be relying on this book to give me an idea of what it’s like.
Title: The God of the Woods
Author: Liz Moore
TGP Contributor: Allie
Synopsis: When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide. Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. But Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds.
Preview: I’m a complete sucker for a good thriller, and this one’s premise definitely caught my attention. I’m looking forward to diving into it.