By the award-winning author of Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee … divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans.
We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin’s early life: her mother, who taught her the joy of books but whose debilitating illness left her housebound: and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Most important, Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers’ leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood.
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An absolute must-read for any baseball fan who remembers integration.
Sweet book
I am also a fan of a Team that broke my heart by almost winning. I could relate. I liked hearing about her neighborhood and how important the team was to the fans.
This writer is always great, a first class historian. Here she takes a more personal tone–her love of the game, instilled in her by her father. This is a great read.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is an amazing author. Though this may not her best book, it’s a joy to read anything by her.
When was the last time you read such a personal book about a baseball team with all its many foibles and accomplishments? Te author seems to tell her own story while linking it to her favorite BB team. Very good reading!
Of you are a fan of baseball you will love this book.
My family loves baseball and we could relate to Doris and her father.
I loved this book. As a Dodger fan and a Goodwin fan, this was like a two-scoop hot fudge sundae.
If you like baseball you’ll love this book. It also talks about life in 1950’s Brooklyn.
I enjoyed this book because I was born in Brooklyn, NY and I was born a Dodgers fan. I so appreciated how Ms. Goodwin related the success and failure of the Dodgers to her own life and her shared love of the game with her father. It meant a lot to me to read about how it was “back in the day” in Brooklyn, her neighborhood and our team. Her stories reminded me of my own father’s stories about our neighborhood and his youth and how my dad, my uncles and my grandfather would rail against “The Bums” and love them at the same time. I never experienced that close-knit community because we moved to California when I was only four…but the Dodgers followed us here! And a fan I’ve remained!
Memoir of author’s growing up years and her devotion to the Brooklyn Dodgers. She is a wonderful storyteller!
A great baseball book even if you arn’t a Dodgers fan.
As a lover of our national pastime and a sometimes Red Sox Fan. (Mostly, I’m an Indian fan), I feel her love of the sport and the way it affected her relationship with her father.
First of all, I enjoy reading a book by someone who shares with me a love for the game of baseball. Also, it was a very nostalgic book for me because Mrs. Goodwin grew up in the early 50’s, and I loved reminiscing with her about the good ol’ days when life was not so complicated. Mrs. Goodwin honored her father and mother by sharing the gifts that they gave to her – a love for reading from her mother, and a love for the sport of baseball, particularly the Brooklyn Dodgers, from her father. The book was funny and original, and an easy read.
One of my all time favorite books. Not just about baseball, it defines an era, an era that is unfortunately long gone.