Novels
- Match Made in Heaven (2003)
- Once Upon a Fastball (2008)
- Everything On the Line (2013)
Non fiction
- The Tao of Sports (1997)
- How My Mother Accidentally… (1999)
- The Heart Has Its Reasons (2002)
Novels Book Covers
Non fiction Book Covers
Bob Mitchell Books Overview
Match Made in Heaven
‘So…
why should I save you?’ That’s the question Elliott Goodman hears in the OR as he’s about to have emergency surgery following a heart attack. But it isn’t Elliott’s surgeon who’s asking. It’s God. As in The Almighty. And God has a wager for Elliott. He challenges him to an eighteen hole golf match. If Elliott wins, he is saved; if he loses…
So begins this witty, insightful, very funny, and wholly unique novel about golf and life and the lessons learned from both. To be fair isn’t He always?, God sends down eighteen legendary opponents to play against Elliott and hopefully teach him a few tricks along the way. From Leonardo da Vinci nice clubs to Marilyn Monroe nice…
everything, Babe Ruth pass the hot dogs, Abraham Lincoln cheater!, and fourteen other luminaries, including Moses, John Lennon, Joan of Arc, Picasso, W.C. Fields, Socrates, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Beethoven, Gandhi, and Shakespeare, Elliott squares off against some of the most extraordinary people who’ve ever lived. As shots are analyzed, balls enter bunkers, and Freud drives the cart control freak, Elliott has a chance to examine his life and his form, to see what he can correct or improve before meeting his ultimate challenger. Bighearted and delightfully original, Bob Mitchell’s ‘Match Made in Heaven‘ is a grand celebration of golf and a profound parable of travelling our own personal fairways in a game where no effort is wasted, and every failure is just another chance to try again.
Once Upon a Fastball
Your legacy is in the Attic. The words leap from the cryptic poem left for Harvard professor Seth Stein by his Papa Sol, the doting grandfather who vanished without a trace four years earlier. It was Papa Sol who instilled an unquenchable passion for baseball in Seth’s soul; it was Sol who also ignited Seth’s obsession with history, spinning fabulous tales of times and people long gone. And when Papa Sol disappeared, it was Seth who stepped up to the plate, caring for Sol’s bewildered wife as she clung to her cherished memories. Seth is still searching for answers when the poem ‘For Setharoo, on his fiftieth birthday’ appears in his grandmother’s home. It leads him to a scuffed, yellowed baseball, resting in a box handmade by his grandfather. Without warning, a single touch of the rough leather thrusts Seth through the swirling vortex of history onto the streets of 1950s New York and then to the greatest baseball game ever played, the Bobby Thomson ‘Shot Heard Round the World’ playoff classic. It is in this surreal, sepia toned site of past glory that historian Seth begins a wondrous, life changing odyssey that allows him to find the answers he so desperately seeks. Suspenseful, thought provoking, funny, and poignant , this beautifully crafted novel is a joyous tribute to our inspiring and timeless national pastime, and a rare treasure for all those who love baseball.
The Tao of Sports
Sports today seems all to often to be poisoned by greed, incivility, and violence. Part philosophy, part poetry, part common sense, The Tao of Sports is a spiritual roadmap to self discovery and to understanding the great paradoxes of sports, athletics, and the Game: defeat and joy, struggle and serenity, anarchy and peace, fear and confidence. Witty, passionate, and thoughtful, The Tao of Sports is a Zen guide, a coaching manual, an athlete’s playbook, and a very engaging, informative reading for any fan who ever rooted for a player or a team.
How My Mother Accidentally…
‘Sports inspires fascination, and so I’ve written about sports of all shapes and colors…
Taking place in locales as varied as Boro Park and Williamstown, Columbus and West Lafayette, Maine and Texas, Maui and Tel Aviv. And with story lines that I’ve found to be ceaselessly thought provoking. The cosmic significance of baseball cards. The genetic ramifications of tossing a hardball. The quest to determine the hairiest NBA player ever. The tragic nature of rooting. The proper way to name your dog. A brief history of hats. The relationship of sports to Latin. The tiny place in your brain where all trivia is sorted.’ From the Introduction
The Heart Has Its Reasons
A collection of sports poetry that has something for everyone from blacktop basketball to chess to legendary baseball sluggers, Mitchell has it all.
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