Book Review: Home Game [2009]

In the past few months, I have been trying to read as many new books as possible in an attempt to "stock up" mentally for the anticipated time, which will probably stretch years, when reading for pleasure is a luxury rarely enjoyed. Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, by Moneyball author Michael Lewis, is the first book I've read that might actually be somewhat pertinent to the coming Time of Reading Restriction. The book is a series of journal entries, most adapted from articles published in Slate, which chronicle Lewis's thoughts and experiences after the birth of each of his three children. These short entries are often humorous, and Lewis blithely assumes that we will find his lack of parental acumen amusing. Though there are occasional glimpses of a caring father beneath the veneer of self-pity, what he wants to get across is the (he believes) difficulty fathers have connecting with newborns: "After every new child, I learn the same lesson, grudgingly: If you want to feel the way you're meant to feel about the new baby, you need to do the grunt work. It's only in caring for a thing that you become attached to it." Home Game is a slight but entertaining afternoon amusement.

Grade: B-