A Reactionarys Reading List (the past really WAS better)
Explore a reactionary’s curated reading list celebrating the past really was better—featuring classic storytelling from John Grisham's A Painted House to Darryl Brock's If I Never Get Back, plus sports history in The Celebrant. Discover timeless fiction and nostalgia-driven books that champion tradition, simpler times, and forgotten Americana in this essential books list for reactionary readers.
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A Painted House
by John Grisham
Racial tension, a forbidden love affair, and murder are seen through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy in a 1950s Southern cotton-farming community
Book
If I Never Get Back
by Darryl Brock
Time travel meets baseball in this ¿grand adventure¿ about a modern-day reporter who witnesses the birth of America¿s favorite pastime (The Washington Times) Contemporary reporter Sam Fowler is stuck in a dull job and a failing marriage when he is suddenly transported back to the summer of 1869. After a wrenching period of adjustment, he feels rejuvenated by his involvement with the nation¿s first pro baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. But American sports isn't the only thing to undergo a major transformation¿Sam himself starts to change as he faces life-threatening 19th-century challenges on and off the baseball diamond. With the support of his fellow ballplayers and the lovely Caitlin O'Neill, will he regain the sense of family he desperately needs? Darryl Brock masterfully evokes post-Civil War America¿its smoky cities and transcontinental railroad, its dance halls and parlour houses, its financial booms and busts. Equally appealing to sports fans and anyone who appreciates a well-told story, If I Never Get Back is a literary home run that "grabs you from line one on page one and never lets go" (San Francisco Chronicle).
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The Celebrant
by Eric Rolfe Greenberg
The first two decades of the twentieth century were a time of promise and innocence in America. Hardworking immigrants could achieve the American dream; heroes were truly heroic. Eric Rolfe Greenberg brilliantly and authentically chronicles the real-life saga of the first national baseball hero, Christy Mathewson, and the fictional story of a Jewish immigrant family of jewelers. In these pages Mathewson and other great players like John McGraw, Honus Wagner, and Connie Mack discover the realities behind the shining illusions: the burdens of being a hero and the temptations that taint success.
