Field Work

Important Shipping Notice: Due to the ongoing Canada Post strike, delivery times may be longer than usual. Where possible, we’ll use alternative shipping methods to help get your order to you sooner. We appreciate your patience and understanding as your order makes its way to you.

A note to US-based customers: All Lit Up is pausing print orders to the USA until further notice. Read more

By (author): Andrew Forbes

Roger Angell meets Hanif Abdurraqib meets Bull Durham in this sharp new collection of baseball writing by Andrew Forbes

Baseball is a sport, a pastime, an obsession, a dream―and for some, it’s also a day job. Field Work is a poetic survey of baseball’s rich history that uncovers the people who makes the game happen, from the pioneers who built and maintained early ballparks to minor-league players’ surprising part-time jobs to the parents who coach Little League teams. Along the way it shines a surprising light on the complex relationships between work and play and how we value labour.

Equal parts sharp-eyed obversation and beautiful digression, these essays celebrate the ways in which baseball shapes the way we move through the world—and how our understanding of work has an unmistakable influence on what happens on the ball diamond.

AUTHOR

Andrew Forbes

Andrew Forbes is the author of the story collections Lands and Forests (Invisible Publishing, 2019) and What You Need (2015), which was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and named a finalist for the Trillium Book Prize. He is also the author of The Utility of Boredom: Baseball Essays (2016). Forbes lives in Peterborough, Ontario.

Reviews

Praise forField Work

What a mind Andrew Forbes has and how lucky we are that hes given over so much of it to thinking about baseball sifting through its bottomless history for bits of gold diving with gusto down its quirkiest rabbit holes Hes a fivetool talent and withField Workhe stakes his claim as baseballs most indispensable folklorist This collection of essays is the purest expression yet of his love for the game and the men who played it for a livingDevin Gordon author ofSo Many Ways to Lose

Praise for Andrew Forbess Previous Work

Transcendent proseShelf Awareness

A lovely philosophical look at the sport of summer this one suits diehard fanatics as well as the casual baseball fanToronto Star

Andrew Forbess writing is almost invisibly stunning clear with romantic flourishes equal to his subject matterThe National Post

A seventhinning stretch of profound wisdomFarther Off the Wall

Comprehends the game at an elite observational level yet writes about it accessiblyGlobe and Mail

Forbes essays are as consumable as a large tub of popcornFansided