You Must Read: Fantasyland

This is the first of what we hope - ambition providing - will be a fascinating exploration of the written word, print and online. Here's the deal: we present to you something we've recently read that either blew our mind with its insight, shattered our stomach with laughter, or just knocked us over with its ineptitude. No, In Touch and US Weekly will not be included. Ever. Although we did receive a complementary subscription to US Weekly when Premiere folded, we shit you not.

Up first is Fantasyland, by Wall Street Journal senior writer Sam Walker, released in March of 2006.

Fantasyland is part experiment, part literary endeavor. It chronicles Walker's attempt to win Tout Wars - an ultra-competitive fantasy baseball league - by using his journalistic contacts and resources. It seems like a reasonable idea - until Walker realizes just how detailed, obsessive, and informed his leaguemates are. Walker quickly learns the difference between baseball on the field and in the box score. He becomes so consumed by the niche sport that he spends thousands of dollars on two full-time assistants and travels to several different major league teams' spring training sites. He grills managers, bench coaches, even the players he's thinking of drafting, all in the hopes of gaining the slightest edge.

Naturally, he fails miserably. Walker's season starts out promising enough - he's still in the middle of the pack after the All-Star break - but by the end he's outwitted by his veteran opponents, a motley assortment of industry insiders and casual participants. Walker's narration is Hornbyesque and his descent into rotisserre hell is painful and poignant, but it's the other league managers who are the most valuable players in Fantasyland's season. Some, like Matthew Berry and Ron Shandler, play it for a living. Others, like the husband who looks to fantasy to ease the pain of his wife's threatening cancer, play it to escape death. But they all play it just the same, and Fantasyland is a revealing, human look at why.