Six Degrees of Separation: Fever Pitch

 

 

This month’s Six Degrees of Separation Chain starts with Nick Hornby’s memoir Fever Pitch–a book I haven’t read.

Here’s the blurb from Amazon:  In America, it is soccer. But in Great Britain, it is the real football. No pads, no prayers, no prisoners. And that’s before the players even take the field.

Nick Hornby has been a football fan since the moment he was conceived. Call it predestiny. Or call it preschool. Fever Pitch is his tribute to a lifelong obsession. Part autobiography, part comedy, part incisive analysis of insanity, Hornby’s award-winning memoir captures the fever pitch of fandom—its agony and ecstasy, its community, its defining role in thousands of young men’s coming-of-age stories. Fever Pitch is one for the home team. But above all, it is one for everyone who knows what it really means to have a losing season.  Link

Soccer is a sport I tolerate fairly well. It’s simply and they keep the commercials to a minimum by not allowing tv time-outs. That said I’ve not read any soccer books. So, I’ll go with the title–Fever Pitch. Only that is difficult, too. Are we pitching a baseball or pitching woo? Pitching a fit or pitching a tent? Malarial fever or dengue fever? Football-football or soccer? Reaching a fever pitch or being pitched out the door? Perfect pitch or an elevator pitch.  All of them? None of them? Here’s goes.

1. Fever Pitch–a baseball….

I’m a life-long Cubs fan, but this book is great. You don’t even have to like sports to enjoy it. Presidential and First Lady historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s memoir of the Brooklyn of her youth, the Brooklyn of the Dodgers and Ebbets Field.  Wait Till Next Year.

2. Pitch a Tent…Get a Fever

Another Presidential Historian, Candice Millard, has written a superb account of Theodore Roosevelt and son Kermit’s epic adventure–an adventure that darned near killed T.R. It is like reading an Indian Jones adventure! Charting the course of the Amazon in pre-war 1914 was not a job for the faint-hearted. Larger-than-life Bull Moose, Teddy Roosevelt took on the challenge but only just lived to tell. River of Doubt.

3. Malarial Fever

This was a fun read. As a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, the title immediately caught my eye. Happily the story did not disappoint. First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria….

4. Pitching a Fit…or Not

French kids don’t pitch fits … even at dinner. They eat their rocket salad with tangy mustard vinegrette. No one has heard of Ranch [dressing]. Not sure if the lessons in this book work in suburban America–at least not the parts I’ve been in, but I’m assured French kids simply get on with with their after-dinner salad like seasoned gourmands. Bringing Up Bebe.

5. Pitching Some Woo

As recently as my childhood it was still illegal for black and white to marry in many states. This book tells the story of how the Supreme Court decided such laws were wrong. I’m anxious to read it. Love Wins.

6. Perfect Pitch

This beautiful picture book tells the story of famed operatic contralto Marian Anderson–who caused “Marian Fever” in Europe according to one book review. Famously denied the use of Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Ms. Anderson’s fame became immortal when first lady Eleanor Roosevelt arranged for a larger venue for Ms Anderson’s concert: The Mall stretch from the Lincoln Memorial, which was the stage, to Capital Hill. When Marian Sang.

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly meme now hosted by Books Are My Favorite And Best.

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