Unfortunately, those parts of the book do not take up the bulk of the story. The parts of the story that interested me involved the baseball field and the players from the past who were resurrected when main character Ray Kinsella built it in his cornfield. Shoeless Joe, the basis for the 1989 Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams, is a decent-ish fantasy swathed in backward looking heteronormative tropes where a beleaguered white messiah-figure brings redemption to all around him.

I enjoyed reading it with my family.Here’s one of those rare (for me) cases of the movie being better than the book. ' This book was the basis of the Field of Dreams. It was an ok book, but it was too wordy for me. The movie that it's based off, Field of Dreams with Kevin costner, I'd stick with the movie. It's fun to see how it compares to the movie, 'Field of Dreams', which is one of my favorite movies. While I liked the movie, it lack the sense of magic that was present in the book. ' I read the book 20 years ago, well before the movie was made. It was an enjoyable sports book, and I think it helped me enjoy the movie even more.

' It was interesting to read this after watching 'Field of Dreams' several times.

Overall Performance: Narration Rating: Story Rating:.

We bought this copy, used, on Amazon, for one cent. Kinsella's writing style is beautiful! There are a few more characters than in the movie and the characters are more developed. In doing this, he also inadvertently provides us with an amazing and somewhat nostalgic story on America's perhaps most beloved national pastimes, baseball. “It” is a baseball stadium, which Ray carves out of his cornfield. One day, while out in his cornfield, Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella hears the voice of a baseball announcer saying, “If you build it, he will come.” “He,” of course, is Ray’s hero, Joe Jackson. “Shoeless Joe” is the great Joe Jackson, one of the eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox who were banned from baseball for throwing the World Series. Kinsella captures the spiritual dimension that baseball represents for its most determined devotees in this tale on love and the power dreams have to make people come alive. Shoeless Joe, the soul-stirring novel on which the movie Field of Dreams is based, is more than just another baseball story.

Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella