Q&A with Tom Dunkel

Tom Dunkel, author of “Color Blind: The Forgotten Team That Broke Baseball’s Color Line,” is a long-time contributor to The Washington Post Magazine and a former feature writer for the Baltimore Sun. His other writing credits include The New York Times Magazine, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic Traveler and Smithsonian. He lives in Washington, D.C. “Color Blind” is his first book.

What are the best books you’ve read recently?
I found Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir “My Beloved World” surprisingly well written in parts, although kudos probably should go to her collaborator, Zara Houshmand. I was pleased to read that as a child Sonia delighted in reenacting bits of slapstick from The Three Stooges comedy shorts. It’s somehow comforting to know that at least one sitting Supreme Court Justice appreciates the humor of twisting somebody’s nose with a pair of pliers.

Nick Taylor’s “A Necessary End” (an account of his parents’ old-age death spiral) was enjoyable because the prose so frequently shines, but the topic admittedly is a downer.

I’m currently reading a compendium of Gene Weingarten’s Washington Post pieces entitled “The Fiddler in the Subway.” Good stuff.

What was your favorite book as a child?
I’m not saying I was a low-brow kid, but I’m of a generation where the Hardy Boys were our Harry Potter. Come to think of it, I was a low-brow kid: The bookcases of my house were lined with my parents’ collection of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.

Why do you enjoy attending book festivals, either as a presenter or audience member?
“Color Blind” is my first book, so my prior book festival experience has been strictly as an audience member. I go to have my faith restored in humanity. It’s reassuring to see that many hundreds of people still revel in the printed page, still yearn to be transported to worlds real and imagined, still line their bookcases with fine fiction, nonfiction, and, yes, even Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.

Have you been to the D.C. area before? If so, what is your favorite thing about it?
I live on Capitol Hill. One of my favorite D C things is to bike the National Mall very late at night. The tourists are gone, the rats come out to play, and the monuments speak in hushed tones. I highly recommend the sobering triptych of General Grant monuments at the base of the Capitol grounds.

What is the most difficult, or challenging, aspect of being a writer?
Hmm, how about the sheer terror of trying to make a living by pinning beautiful sentences and cogent thoughts onto a sheet of paper? I liken it to wrestling alligators. (By the way, I usually lose.)

The isolation takes some getting used to as well. The office holiday party is a bit strange. I keep drawing my own name for the grab-bag gift.