Here are 100 books that Ballpark fans have personally recommended if you like
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Major league baseball stadiums have always enthralled me—their architectures, their atmospheres, their surroundings. Each has a unique story to tell. So I decided to tell the story of how perhaps the greatest of all American ballparks, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, came to be. As an urban historian, I also wished to tell a broader story of how the argument between 1957 and 1962 over whether, where, and how to build the stadium helped make Los Angeles into the modern city we know today. So writing City of Dreamsallowed me to combine my passions for baseball, for stadiums, and for the history of American cities.
A lifelong fan of a baseball team makes the best chronicler of its ballpark, and long-time Cubs sufferer (are there any other kind?) George Will explains the charms of Wrigley Field that endure in the face of a century (save for one glorious year) of near-misses, by-a-mile misses, and general misery. Ironically, Will composed this love letter to his Field of Despair just before the Cubs ended a 108-year drought by winning the 2016 World Series. But this may not really matter. For Will, and for all Cubs fans, Wrigley Field is more than the sum of its wins and losses. It transcends them.
Now with bonus material on the Chicago Cubs' World Series win, the New York Times-bestselling history of America's most beloved baseball stadium, Wrigley Field, and the Cubs’ century-long search for World Series glory
In A Nice Little Place on the North Side, leading columnist George Will returns to baseball with a deeply personal look at his hapless Chicago Cubs and their often beatified home, Wrigley Field, as it enters its second century. Baseball, Will argues, is full of metaphors for life, religion, and happiness, and Wrigley is considered one of its sacred spaces. But what is its true, hyperbole-free history?…
Major league baseball stadiums have always enthralled me—their architectures, their atmospheres, their surroundings. Each has a unique story to tell. So I decided to tell the story of how perhaps the greatest of all American ballparks, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, came to be. As an urban historian, I also wished to tell a broader story of how the argument between 1957 and 1962 over whether, where, and how to build the stadium helped make Los Angeles into the modern city we know today. So writing City of Dreamsallowed me to combine my passions for baseball, for stadiums, and for the history of American cities.
One of the models for my own book, this study of Shibe Park—later named Connie Mack Stadium—places it in the context of the growth and decline of its North Philadelphia neighborhood. Home first to the Philadelphia Athletics, then the Athletics and Phillies, and then, until 1970, the Phillies alone, the stadium went from a position as the centerpiece of a vibrant industrial and residential community to a decaying symbol of urban decline by the 1960s. Still, there are those who remember and love it, and Kuklick has written a fascinating and evocative book that tells the story of a twentieth-century American city through its signature baseball stadium.
Shibe Park was demolished in 1976, and today its site is surrounded by the devastation of North Philadelphia. Kuklick, however, vividly evokes the feelings people had about the home of the Philadelphia Athletics and later the Phillies.
Major league baseball stadiums have always enthralled me—their architectures, their atmospheres, their surroundings. Each has a unique story to tell. So I decided to tell the story of how perhaps the greatest of all American ballparks, Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, came to be. As an urban historian, I also wished to tell a broader story of how the argument between 1957 and 1962 over whether, where, and how to build the stadium helped make Los Angeles into the modern city we know today. So writing City of Dreamsallowed me to combine my passions for baseball, for stadiums, and for the history of American cities.
This is actually a book about a baseball stadium that was notbuilt—the Brooklyn Dodgers’ proposed new home in that borough’s downtown that fell victim to the shortsightedness of New York City elected officials and that of their master, building czar and power broker Robert Moses. This was the first systematic and objective examination of the emotionally-fraught subject of the team’s 1957 departure for Los Angeles and the promise of a new stadium there (the subject of my Cityof Dreams), and was instrumental in placing responsibility for the Dodgers’ move squarely on the shoulders of New York pols and the imperious Moses. Also highly recommended is Sullivan’sThe Diamond in the Bronx: Yankee Stadium and the Politics of New York.
For many New Yorkers, the removal of the Brooklyn Dodgers-perhaps the most popular baseball team of all time-to Los Angeles in 1957 remains one of the most traumatic events since World War II. Neil J. Sullivan's controversial reassessment of a story that has reached almost mythic proportions in its many retellings shifts responsibility for the move onto the local governmental maneuverings that occurred on both sides of the continent. Conventional wisdom has it that Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley cold-heartedly abandoned the devoted Brooklyn fans for the easy money of Los Angeles. Sullivan argues that O'Malley had, in fact, wanted to…
My father used to take me to watch the Twins play at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, a twenty-minute drive from our house in suburban Minneapolis. As soon as the Twins announced their schedule each year, he would buy tickets for the doubleheaders. Our favorites were the twilight doubleheaders, when we watched one game by daylight, and the other under the night sky. Baseball was pure to me then: played outdoors on real grass. Seated beside my dad during those twin bills, I felt his love for the game seep into me and take root. All these years later, almost two decades after his death, that love remains strong.
I love the books that go behind the scenes and show us more of a story we thought we knew. This is one of those. Josh Prager pulls back the curtain on Bobby Thomsen’s "shot heard round the world" with startling revelations from his research.
I was left with mixed emotions and uncertainty about a feat that had initially appeared nothing but heroic.
This is the untold story of the secret scandal behind baseball's most legendary moment:The Shot Heard Round the World. A Washington Post Best Book of the Year.
At 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The ball sailed over the left field wall and into history. The Giants won the pennant. That moment—the Shot Heard Round the World—reverberated from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where hitter and pitcher forever turned into hero and goat. It was also in that…
I have read most of the books written about Apollo, especially those ostensibly written by my fellow participants. I have read these books for pleasure, to find out about parts of the moon effort that I did not see first-hand, and to learn what I could from the authors’ mistakes and successes — with a view to the writing of my own book. The books I have come to value the most are the books that seem to have been created for some other reason than commercial gain, the books unmarred by ghostwriting or heavy-handed editing, the books where the author’s authentic voice speaks from the page.
Eldon Hall led the development of the Apollo Guidance Computer, that one-cubic-foot device with 76kb of memory that navigated, guided, and controlled each of the Apollo spacecraft — the machine that I helped program. His book is both a detailed description of the Apollo computer and a history of its development. The most dramatic chapter chronicles the bold decision to use integrated circuits in the design of the computer — all of the same type, to encourage the vendor to keep making them — although that technology was then anything but reliable.
The first of its kind, Journey to the Moon details the history and design of the computer that enabled U.S. astronauts to land on the moon. The book recalls the history of computer technology, both hardware and software, and the applications of digital computing to missile guidance systems and manned spacecraft. The book also offers graphics and photos drawn from the Draper Laboratories' archives that illustrate the technology and related events during the Apollo project. Written for experts as well as lay persons, Journey to the Moon is the first book of its kind and a must for anyone interested…
As a NASA Flight Controller and crewman on the high-altitude research aircraft, I met many pilots, including those who flew X-planes. I became passionate about extreme and experimental flying. I have experienced supersonic flight and have flown to 70,000 feet. These experiences motivated me to write three books about X-planes: Stratonauts, X-59: Lowering the Sonic Boom, and X-66A: Bracing for the Future.
The concept for this aircraft was born from General Curtis LeMay’s desire for a heavy bomber with the weapon load and range of the subsonic B-52 and a top speed in excess of the supersonic medium bomber, the B-58 Hustler. I once met General LeMay in the Mercury Control Center in 1962.
However, in April 1961, Defense Secretary McNamara stopped the production of the XB-70 due to rapid cost escalation and the USSR’s newfound ability to destroy aircraft at extremely high altitudes with missiles or the new Mig-25 fighter. The XB-70 became famous for its breakthrough technology and the spectacular images captured when an observing Starfighter collided with the Valkyrie, which crashed into the Mojave Desert.
During the 1950s, at the time Elvis Presley was rocking the world with Hound Dog and the USA was aiming to become the world's only superpower, plans were being drawn at North American Aviation in Southern California for an incredible Mach-3 strategic bomber. The concept was born as a result of General Curtis LeMay's desire for a heavy bomber with the weapon load and range of the subsonic B-52 and a top speed in excess of the supersonic medium bomber, the B-58 Hustler. If LeMay's plans came to fruition there would be 250 Valkyries in the air; it would be…
Mark Ovenden is a broadcaster, lecturer and author who specialises in the design of public transport. His books include ’Transit Maps of The World’ - an Amazon Top 100 best-seller - and a dozen others covering cartography, architecture, typography, way finding and history of urban transit systems, airline routes and railway maps. He has spoken on these subjects across the World and is a regular on the UK's Arts Society lecture circuit. His television and radio programmes for the BBC have helped to explain the joys of good design and urban architecture. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and after many years living in cities like London, Paris, New York and Manchester…now enjoys a more rural life on the Isle of Wight.
With a razor sharp eye Wolmar (author of many other excellent books on railway history) concentrates his focus on the machinations of the establishment of the world's first railway built under the ground. Overcoming the travails of unbuilt fantasy concepts, the Victorians fear of the dark, finances and the problems of running steam trains in tunnels, London's City Solicitor Charles Pearson, managed to get the first route, the Metropolitan Railway, built and opened by January 1863. Wolmar unpicks the struggles to expand the line, private capitals, a rush to build more lines and the eventual nationalisation of the system in 1948.
Revised and updated edition of Christian Wolmar's classic history of the London Underground, with a new chapter on Crossrail.
'I can think of few better ways to while away those elastic periods awaiting the arrival of the next eastbound Circle Line train than by reading [this book].' Tom Fort, Sunday Telegraph
Since the Victorian era, London's Underground has played a vital role in the daily life of generations of Londoners. In The Subterranean Railway, Christian Wolmar celebrates the vision and determination of the nineteenth-century pioneers who made the world's first, and still the largest, underground passenger railway: one of the…
As the authors of 27 hand-illustrated books, we are acutely aware of the time and skill required for good rendering. We are old-schoolers ourselves, having cut our teeth on “how-to” books before computers came into vogue. Our readers often tell us that a computer drawing does not have the same appeal and clarity as hand drawing. We are able to ‘talk’ a reader through the process of building something with our drawings. We have also found that the best illustrated books often have the best content!
This is an oldie but goodie. It speaks to our own love of simple structures, designed to get you out in nature. The illustrations are simpler but fit in very well with the language of the era, and the personal philosophy of the author. There are floor plans, cabin renderings, and many smaller illustrations of the tools and furnishings that might go into a simple cabin. It is more than a how-to book. It is a celebration of cabin-living writ large.
For 70 years, readers have been enjoying Meinecke's classic odes to the simple life, Your Cabin in the Woods (1943) and Cabin Craft and Outdoor Living (1947). For the first time, these books are combined into a deluxe two-color vintage package, featuring hundreds of charming illustrations by Victor Aures, known for his work with the Boy Scouts of America.
In writing both practical and inspirational, Meinecke details how to turn your dream into a reality, from building plans to choosing land to using tools. However the book's enduring appeal owes in large part to its warmly engaging tone and firm…
I am a professor of architecture, urbanism, and landscape at Northeastern University in Boston, as well as a licensed architect and urban designer. I’ve always been fascinated by the ways the design of the world affects our decision-making, health, and opportunities, from the early days of my career designing hospitals to my current work researching and designing for green space equity and considering how we design in the age of pandemics and climate change. I hope these books, as well as my own writing and work, empower people to understand, ask for, and co-design healthier environments wherever they live, work, and play.
Michael Murphy is one of the co-founders of MASS Design Group, who may have seen profiled on60 Minutes or in the Wall Street Journal. This design firm and nonprofit probably does some of the best and broadest work in health and justice-centered design, in projects from the United States to Haiti to Rwanda. I began my career in hospital design, and this book is both a history of innovative healthcare facilities but also provides an introduction to MASS Design’s incredibly innovative work in this sector and is beautifully and richly illustrated to boot.
Architecture of Health is a story about the design and life of hospitals-about how they are born and evolve, about the forces that give them shape, and the shifts that conspire to render them inadequate. Reading architecture through the history of hospitals is a deciphering tool for unlocking the elemental principles of architecture and the intractable laws of human and social conditions that architecture serves in each of our lives.
This book encounters brilliant and visionary designers who were hospital architects but also systems designers, driven by the aim of social change. They faced the contradictions of health care in…
We have written 27 “how-to” books on building outdoor projects, including cabins, sheds, and treehouses. David does the illustrations and I do the descriptive writing. Our goal is to make the instructions clear to both right and left brain readers – and to make the two elements complement each other. Our readers often tell us that a computer drawing does not have the same appeal and clarity as hand drawing. We are able to ‘talk’ a reader through the process of building something with our drawings. People often send us photographs of their completed projects – it’s a big part of the satisfaction we get from writing our books.
Building Construction Illustrated is a comprehensive visual guide to the principles of building construction. Francis D.K. Ching’s clear illustrations and hand lettering have set the standard for 50 years. The book explains concepts in residential and commercial construction, architecture, and structural engineering. The sixth edition features new illustrations and updated information on sustainability, green building, and insulation materials.
The #1 visual guide to building construction principles, updated with the latest materials, methods, and systems
For over four decades, Building Construction Illustrated has been the leading visual guide to the principles of building construction. Filled with rich illustrations and in-depth content by renowned author Francis D.K. Ching, it offers students and practicing professionals the information needed to understand concepts in residential and commercial construction, architecture, and structural engineering.
This Sixth Edition of Building Construction Illustrated has been revised throughout to reflect the latest advancements in building design, materials, and systems, including resilient design, diagrids, modular foundation systems, smart facade…
