Calico Joe

 Dates Read: July 2013
As with Where we Belong, I picked up Calico Joe at the airport, but didn't start reading it until I was home and needed some nighttime reading material. This book was very short and sweet. I wish I knew more about baseball, just to even better understand the story, but my lack of baseball knowledge did not hurt my reading or understanding the book. I loved it! A great story set with a baseball scene.

Summary: (from amazon.com)

Whatever happened to Calico Joe?

     It began quietly enough with a pulled hamstring. The first baseman for the Cubs AAA affiliate in Wichita went down as he rounded third and headed for home. The next day, Jim Hickman, the first baseman for the Cubs, injured his back. The team suddenly needed someone to play first, so they reached down to their AA club in Midland, Texas, and called up a twenty-one-year-old named Joe Castle. He was the hottest player in AA and creating a buzz.

In the summer of 1973 Joe Castle was the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone had ever seen.  The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas dazzled Cub fans as he hit home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shattered all rookie records.

Calico Joe quickly became the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faced Calico Joe, Paul was in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his Dad. Then Warren threw a fastball that would change their lives forever…

In John Grisham’s new novel the baseball is thrilling, but it’s what happens off the field that makes CALICO JOE a classic.

Where We Belong

Dates Read: July 2013
On the way home from my business trip, I was not in the mood to do technical reading, but I wanted something to read to kill time at the airport and on the plane so I picked up Where We Belong (and Calico Joe). I ended up talking to coworkers while killing time at the airport, so instead this was a great night time reading book. And it was great - except that I stayed up waaaay too late for a few nights because I couldn't stop reading. 

The story alternates between two perspectives and I found myself constantly reading one perspective and then wanting to read the next chapter to get the other perspective. Definitely a fun, girly read!

Summary: (from amazon.com)

Marian Caldwell is a thirty-six-year-old television producer living her dream in New York City. With a fulfilling career and picture-perfect relationship, she has convinced everyone, including herself, that her life is just as she wants it to be. But one night, Marian answers a knock on the door . . . only to find Kirby Rose, an eighteen-year-old girl with a key to a past that Marian thought she had locked away forever.

From the moment Kirby appears on her doorstep, Marian’s meticulously constructed world will be shaken to its core, resurrecting memories of a passionate young love affair that threaten everything that has come to define her. For the precocious and headstrong Kirby, the encounter will spur a process of discovery that ushers her across the threshold of adulthood, forcing her to reevaluate her family and future in a wise and bittersweet light.

As Marian and Kirby embark on a quest to find the one thing missing in their lives, each will come to recognize that where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves. A place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever.