Fimrite, Ron. “Fiction in a Diamond Setting: Mark Harris’s Novels Sparkle with Hard-Edged Realism.” Sports Illustrated 73 (October 15, 1990): 117-122. A biographical and critical profile of Harris. Fimrite details the evolution of serious literature on baseball. Notes the influence of Ring Lardner and Mark Twain on Harris’s baseball books.

Harris, Mark. Best Father Ever Invented: The Autobiography of Mark Harris. New York: Dial Press, 1976. In his autobiography, written during the 1960’s and published in 1976, Harris portrays himself as depressed over his work, categorizing his earlier baseball novel, The Southpaw, as “facile realism in a facile style.” A fascinating early self-portrait of a writer who has since come to terms with himself and his writing.

Harris, Mark. Diamond: Baseball Writings of Mark Harris. New York: Donald I. Fine, 1995. A collection of baseball writings by Harris spanning 1946 through 1993. Provides an illuminating view into Harris’s devotion to the game and the evolution of his thinking on numerous topics. Also included is Harris’s screenplay of the film version of Bang the Drum Slowly.

Lavers, Norman. Mark Harris. Boston: Twayne, 1978. Lavers provides a critical and interpretive study of Harris, with a close reading of his major works, a solid bibliography, and complete notes and references.

Schaefer, William J. “Mark Harris: Versions of (American) Pastoral.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 19, no. 1 (1977): 28-42. An excellent extended critical study of Harris’s fiction.

Stern, Richard. “Self-Invention.” In The Invention of the Real. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1982. An illuminating examination of Harris’s fusion of autobiography and fiction.