100 books like Girl at Heart

It might not be Korean, but the same feeling is there. So many fangirls dream of visiting their favorite stories—and the main character Jane—in the book Austenland gets to do just that. When Jane’s grandmother buys her a trip to Austenland—the place where any girl’s Jane Austen dream can come true, she feels rude turning it down. Although, she’s enamored by men wearing smart coats and cravats, she’s also keenly aware of how fake everything is. It only takes a few days, however, to get swept up in the realness of the scene. A fangirl can hardly control her desire to be in her favorite book. This adorable and funny romance is exactly my cup of tea. 

I absolutely loved the way that Emma wrote these characters. I related to Seraphina and fell for Rafe’s charm time and time again. They’re a couple that’s perfect for each other.

Some book couples you read and think they may not make it past the last page, but I could see these two together forever. The whole book made me swoon and laugh. 

First of all this book has a hot cowboy in it. *Swoons* As far as wish-fulfillment goes, I think most women would like to date a cowboy. Cowboys love horses, have muscles, and wear cool hats. I’m not sure why women ever stopped making men wear hats (top hats especially—every man looks better in a top hat) so I especially appreciate a man in a cowboy hat. 

However, I wouldn’t like a cowgirl’s schedule of getting up at the crack of dawn to do ranch work, which is why it’s so nice to vicariously live through this book. You get to date the hot guy but you don’t have to clean stables. Win-win!

Oh, and mixing up a guy with his twin brother and making a fool of yourself—also fun to read about.

The first installment of Michelle Pennington’s Shaped By Love series, A Man Worth Shaving For is a fantastic romantic comedy centering around Tessa and Logan. Tessa is the head of HR in a body-positive lingerie company, while Logan has been called in to analyse the business and give his opinion on where cuts should be made. They are not aware of their upcoming connection, however, until after Tessa is set up on a blind date with him through mutual friends… a date which did not go particularly well. 

Michelle Pennington has written a lot of romances, but with romcom she blows everything else out of the water. I had pre-order alerts set up on my phone for when the next release in the series came out because I loved them that much.

Are you a baseball fan who grumbles about modern players being overpaid and coddled? If so, this book will transport you to baseball’s roughest epoch, and reward you with a ballbag of “Who knew?”s as to how the game was played and fought in the late 1800s. Back then, a different species of men took the field, men who would not recognize our 21st-century diamond dancers, who slip on gloves for every occasion: catching, batting, even sliding.

A quick sampler of Who Knew?s. In 1884, an ump commanded, “Striker-up!” A pitcher could hit a batter as many times as he wanted, and the batter had to take it. The pitcher could be fined for such abuse, but the only way a batter got to first was by hitting the ball. A pitcher could “twirl the sphere” and baffle the hitter until the pitches “twisted his mental trolley.” A twisted mental… show more.

This one has been a staple since back in the early 1990s, when it was produced by STATS, Inc.

There are still the basics, such as career statistics for every major leaguer, lefty-righty breakdowns, leaders, fielding stats, and projections, but every year they add something new. There are essays on various topics—sabermetric and otherwise, breakdowns of pitchers’ repertoires, Fielding Bible Awards, injury risk projections, and so much more.

Come for the stats, get lost in everything else.

During the mid-1960s, Sandy Koufax was a dominant baseball pitcher and was destined to be the youngest player to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

For Jewish fans however, of my generation and beyond, he was an iconic Jewish hero most notably for his determination in 1965 to sit out a World Series game in deference to Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Leavy, an extraordinarily talented writer, tells this sports and Jewish story with keen insights into Koufax’s personality.

Keith Olberman said that The Bullpen Gospels, "Might be one of the best baseball books written in forty years." 

I would like to go a step further and say that it is THE best baseball book that has been written. Ever. Even better than Ball Four, to me, because it takes place during the modern era of baseball and was written by Hayhurst as he played professionally. 

Hayhurst gives readers a realistic view into what it is really like to be like the majority of minor league players, “Bonus Babies” aside, as he pulls the veil back on professional baseball. 

Spivey and I share the same goal—to reach a broad audience, both scholarly and general. His book is for readers who love baseball and love history—those with a passion for the game who are not scared off by complex arguments or endnotes. Baseball intellectuals—the huge group of readers embodied by George Will, Ken Burns, and Doris Kearns Goodwin—constitute the central audience. But baseball buffs also care about the history of the game and will want to read this book. Spivey, a history professor, writes accessibly and avoids “insider history”—even in the sections and chapters focused primarily on the sordid past of American race relations. It is a deftly-executed, balanced treatment of Paige and one of the most meticulously researched biographies ever written about an athlete.

In 1970, former New York Yankees pitcher, Jim Bouton, published Ball Four, a blockbuster best-seller that blew the lid off the behind-the-scenes life of professional ballplayers.

Providing such details, routinely covered up by sportswriters, was regarded as heresy and Bouton was condemned and largely banned from the sport. Yet Bouton inaugurated a revolution in sports reporting, and he remained an activist for the rest of his life, well beyond his sport, speaking and acting on civil rights, America’s illegal wars, ballpark preservation, Olympic protest, tenant and community rights, and immigration.

I loved this inspiring story of a man who became more than a “jock” and who transcended his sport to make a positive contribution to his society.