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Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games Hardcover – March 15, 2011

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A. Bartlett Giamatti (Author)
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A. Bartlett Giamatti (Author), Marcus Giamatti (Afterword), Jon Meacham (Foreword)
4.3 out of 5 stars 15 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 106 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; Reprint edition (March 15, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1608192245
  • ISBN-13: 978-1608192243
  • Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.7 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,044,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsTimeless Insights and Valedictory Thoughts
By Lloyd A. Conway on May 22, 2000
Format: Hardcover
A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote this book immediately prior to his unexpected death in 1989. It appeared in print posthumously. That he would pen a paen to baseball at the height of the Pete Rose scandal, as his last published work, is ironic. His prose is sublime. The slender volume is a monograph on the nature of the game of baseball. It is timeless because it is not tied to temporal events. With little alteration, the book could have been written a hundred years ago, or (I hope) a hundred years hence. The Commissioner of Baseball and former Yale Professor of Renaissance Literature explores the intellectual facination of the game. From the geometry of the diamond to the Homeric nature of the baserunner's struggle to reach home again, Giamatti's story is enlightening as well as entertaining. Insights into the nature of our society flow naturally, given that sport in general should be seen in the context of the civilization that spawns it. One that I found to be especially memorable was on the commonalities of learning that change from generation to generation. Giamatti wrote of how the rising generation would understand the world through a computer screen, even as their progenitors had seen it through books, and of the differences, both great and small, that it would make to the thought patterns of our young. All this against the literally timneless fabric of a game played without a clock. -Lloyd A. Conway
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5.0 out of 5 starsTimeless Insights and Valedictory Thoughts
By Lloyd A. Conway on May 22, 2000
Format: Hardcover
A. Bartlett Giamatti wrote this book immediately prior to his unexpected death in 1989. It appeared in print posthumously. That he would pen a paen to baseball at the height of the Pete Rose scandal, as his last published work, is ironic. His prose is sublime. The slender volume is a monograph on the nature of the game of baseball. It is timeless because it is not tied to temporal events. With little alteration, the book could have been written a hundred years ago, or (I hope) a hundred years hence. The Commissioner of Baseball and former Yale Professor of Renaissance Literature explores the intellectual facination of the game. From the geometry of the diamond to the Homeric nature of the baserunner's struggle to reach home again, Giamatti's story is enlightening as well as entertaining. Insights into the nature of our society flow naturally, given that sport in general should be seen in the context of the civilization that spawns it. One that I found to be especially memorable was on the commonalities of learning that change from generation to generation. Giamatti wrote of how the rising generation would understand the world through a computer screen, even as their progenitors had seen it through books, and of the differences, both great and small, that it would make to the thought patterns of our young. All this against the literally timneless fabric of a game played without a clock. -Lloyd A. Conway
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3.0 out of 5 starsShort on pages...
By Jim Moore on March 12, 2014
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
A Bartlett's above (far above I mean) me in writing in his style is a little hard to get used to ... and the book itself is short - 94 pages w/o his son's Afterword. The book delves not just w/ baseball, but how Americans spend their free time - their leisure. Almost like taking a graduate level course.
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5.0 out of 5 starsWax Poetic about the National Pastime
By BlueOrangex2 on April 16, 2014
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Great book about American's and the reason sport is important to our overall psyche. Particular emphasis on baseball and it's spot on. Good for all, not just sports lovers. Helps you understand how games say more about who we are than just about anything we do. Recommend to all who have even the slightest interest in sports, as well as anyone interested in philosophy or American political science.
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3.0 out of 5 starsThoughtful, dense, intelligent
By Daniel Lang on May 10, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Mr. Giamatti was a university professor and Commissioner of Baseball. In Take Time for Paradise he writes more as a professor than as titular conscience of baseball. This is an academic book, mainly philosophical, about the connections between sport and the human condition. Do not read it in expectation of learning insights about the administration of baseball, or what the Commissioner of Baseball or President of the National League actually does on an average day in the office. Do read it for a very smart appreciation of the role that organized sport plays in a day in the life on an average person. In the end the reader is left wondering about two things that Professor Giamatti could have told us more about: the NCAA and Pete Rose.
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4.0 out of 5 starsUnderstanding the Soul of America
By P. Mackey on July 24, 2011
Format: Hardcover
My initial reaction to this slim volume was disappointment. I thought, "Is this all there is to say about sports?" The moment I began reading, though, I was entranced. Giamatti's writing is succinct, yet full of meaning as a haiku. In three brief chapters he captures the essence of the role of sports for humankind, its attractions and challenges. To understand sports is to understand the human aspiration for order, freedom and immortality. If to understand sports is to understand humanity, then to understand baseball is to comprehend the soul of America.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who desires a deeper understanding of sports and their role in our lives.
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2.0 out of 5 starsLost in Translation
By Cujo Wilson on March 28, 2011
Format: Hardcover
There are two kinds of people in this world, those that absolutely loved the film Lost in Translation and those that said, `What the hell did I just watch?' I myself fall into the latter camp and I couldn't help thinking about that movie while reading this book from Bart Giamatti. It sounds like something that was indeed written by the president of Yale and if it was about baseball I could barely tell. I'm sure there are those that will thoroughly enjoy this work just as those that enjoyed Lost in Translation but clearly this ode to sport was out of my league. I had more fun dissecting John Dryden in a 17th century lit class years ago than I did reading this. I would recommend Thomas Boswell's "Why Time Begins on Opening Day" or Ken Burns baseball documentary instead. I have to say the foreword and afterword by Jon Meacham and Marcus Giamatti respectively were very well written and quite moving, more of what I was expecting from the late Commissioner.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

A wonderful peroration to sport, games, and their resonance to life.

Published on July 8, 2014 by DS
4.0 out of 5 starsA meditation on sports, on community, and on being human. Plus...

When a piece of sports writing references, in the first few pages of the first chapter, Shakespeare, Thomas Carlyle, historian Allen Guttman, and Welsh metaphysical poet Henry... Read more

Published on October 9, 2013 by Andrew S. Rogers
5.0 out of 5 starsHow can you go wrong with this author?

As always Doris Kearns Goodwin does a great job writing. It was nice to get a glimpse
of a real person's view of the importance of the National Past- time.

Published on September 7, 2013 by Rev. Ron Hooker (Yale Graduate)
5.0 out of 5 starsBaseball and the Garden of Eden

Baseball fans can be divided into two types, those who are exasperated at attempts to make over-arching abstract observations about the game and those who see baseball as a... Read more

Published on October 12, 2011 by Mary Drew
4.0 out of 5 starsA Philosophical Look into Sports and it's meaning to history

Take Time for Paradise is a really Interesting read. There are three parts to the book and being approx. 130 pages it is a relatively quick read. Read more

Published on August 1, 2011 by iluvEdwardCullen
5.0 out of 5 starsTake Time for Paradise by Bart Giamatti (Baseball Commissioner and...

Bart Giamatti was an amazing man and a wonderful writer. Former president of Yale University and Commissioner of major league baseball, he had a unique and appealing vision of... Read more

Published on September 21, 2008 by Diana
5.0 out of 5 starsA Poetic Celebration of Baseball, Sports, and Cities by Baseball's...

All men who have served as Commissioner of Baseball--a position more people probably aspire to than aspire to be President of the United States--have a dull sameness in their... Read more

Published on February 17, 2007 by Mark B. Cohen
5.0 out of 5 starsThis book is amazing

Giamatti's work here is an insightful look into the spectacle of baseball and sport in general and how they intereact with society and social values. Read more

Published on May 13, 2006 by P. Ritter

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