{"product_id":"natural-book-bernard-malamud-9780374502003","title":"The Natural","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film) now in a new edition\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction by Kevin Baker\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Natural\u003c\/i\u003e, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first--and some would say still the best--novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material--the story of a superbly gifted natural at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era--and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: Malamud has done something which--now that he has done it --looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49646492025105,"sku":"CIN0374502005G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50261845246225,"sku":"CIN0374502005A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50438959956241,"sku":"GOR002301157","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51001847218449,"sku":"NIN9780374502003","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52103533068561,"sku":"CIN0374502005VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52997589172497,"sku":"GOR013323799","price":5.7,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53163064394001,"sku":"GOR007801869","price":5.7,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0374502005.jpg?v=1751419852","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/products\/natural-book-bernard-malamud-9780374502003","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}