Baseball Best-Sellers, November 20, 2020

November 20, 2020

Note: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish writing one). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes.

In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast one by including a book in a category to which it should not be listed (in my opinion). For example, a current title on the BBS list is The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. “Why” is a good question. There might be a smattering of the national pastime in it, but not enough to make it a baseball book per se (again, IMO).

Finally, adults only here. That is, no books for younger readers. Also no romance/erotic fiction that features baseball as a theme either (and goodness knows there are a bunch of those).

So, with all that said…

NEW FEATURE: By the way, the links by the authors’ names will take you to any Bookshelf Conversations I did with them.

PRINT

  1. The Captain: A Memoir, by David Wright with Anthony DiComo
  2. Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life, by Bill Madden
  3. The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II, by Anne R. Keene
  4. Ballparks: A Journey Through the Fields of the Past, Present, and Future, by Eric Enders
  5. The National Baseball Hall of Fame Collection: Celebrating the Game’s Greatest Players, by James Buckley
  6. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis
  7. Los Angeles Times Commemorative Issue DODGERS: 2020 World Series Champions
  8. The Science of Hitting, by Ted Williams with John Underwood
  9. The Baseball Maniac’s Almanac: The Absolutely, Positively, and Without Question Greatest Book of Facts, Figures, and Astonishing Lists Ever Compiled, edited by Bert Randolph Sugar
  10. The Baseball Book of Why: The Answers to Questions You’ve Always Wondered about from America’s National Pastime, by John McCollister

E-BOOKS

  1. Mint Condition, by Dave Jamieson
  2. Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella
  3. Moneyball
  4. Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life
  5. Chumps to Champs, by Bill Pennington
  6. Playing with the Enemy, by Gary Moore
  7. Doc: A Memoir, by Doc Gooden and Ellis Henican
  8. Dalko: The Untold Story of Baseball’s Fastest Pitcher, by Bill Dembski
  9. The Summer Game, by Roger Angell
  10. Where Nobody Knows Your Name, by John Feinstein

AUDIOBOOKS

Note: Amazon has changed the way they list audiobooks. No longer under the general category of “biography and memoir,” they are now treated in their own baseball/softball category. Here’s the general link to the section where you will find further links to the individual audiobooks, their reader/narrators, and samples. Note further that these are updated regularly and the top ten list below might no longer be the same.

  1. Moneyball
  2. Yogi
  3. Ball Four
  4. The Inside Game
  5. The Mental Game of Baseball
  6. Heads-Up Baseball 2.0
  7. October 1964
  8. The Art of Hitting
  9. The MVP Machine
  10. K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

New York Times no longer offers a monthly list of sports best-sellers. There are no baseball titles on their latest nonfiction hardcover weekly posting.

Last week it was the LA Daily News. Today it’s the LA Times with a commemorative about the Dodgers’ world championship.

I would be interested in how Williams’ classic translates to an audiobook, since it’s fairly heavy on illustration.

Buyer Beware: Amazon’s e-book lists offer the top 100 paid and free titles. But if you look closely, some of the books on the “free” list are in reality not free, so pay attention. I sent a query to Amazon’s customer service about this discrepancy but have not heard back yet. (As of this writing, only seven of the top 50 best-sellers under the “free” list are actually free.)

Still not in the Amazon top-ten? 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read before They Die. FYI, right now it ranks at 2,282,046, overall in books; last time, 2,150,922. Hank Greenberg in 1938: Hatred and Home Runs in the Shadow of War ranks 1,393,377 (last time, 650,952).

Shameless self-promotion: if you’re looking for some good baseball reading during this down time, why not pick up a copy of 501? It’s like the abridged dictionary; it has most of the other books in it.

Super-shameless self-promotion: And by the way, I am looking for a publisher for an revised edition of 501, UNP having passed on the opportunity. So if you have any suggestions, please drop me a line. Mucho appreciado.

A reminder: There’s an Excel “checklist” of the books list in 501. If you’re interested in keeping track of how many you have read or own, drop me a line.

If you have read either of those books, thanks, hope you enjoyed it, and please consider writing an Amazon review; it’s never too late.

0Shares

Tagged as: Baseball Cards, David Wright, Los Angeles Dodgers, Ted Williams, Tom Seaver

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post:

script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-5496371-4']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();