{"id":4033,"date":"2020-12-17T13:17:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T13:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=4033"},"modified":"2020-12-17T13:17:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T13:17:52","slug":"introducing-the-tennis-abstract-book-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/17\/introducing-the-tennis-abstract-book-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the Tennis Abstract Book Club"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thirtylove.libsyn.com\/\">Carl Bialik<\/a> and I are kicking off a new feature on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/category\/podcast\/\">Tennis Abstract Podcast<\/a>: a monthly* book club featuring various classics and curiosities in the game&#8217;s literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>* probably<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our first selection is <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3agLxvv\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">A Handful of Summers<\/a>, by <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gordon_Forbes\">Gordon Forbes<\/a>. Forbes, who died last week, was a long-time tour player from South Africa, and his book is widely considered to be among the best tennis memoirs. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.com\/pro-game\/2020\/12\/gordon-forbes-may-have-been-best-former-athlete-writer-all\/92110\/\">Here&#8217;s Steve Tignor raving about it.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&#8217;re still working out exactly what it means to have a podcast book club, so feel free to make suggestions. At minimum, we hope you will:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>read along with us;<\/li><li>send us questions, comments, and the like via <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tennisabstract\">Twitter<\/a>;<\/li><li>listen to the resulting episode in mid-January.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our list of future book selections is already spiraling out of control, but we also welcome tips for future picks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those of you who are interested in the literary and historical aspects of the sport will find plenty to enjoy in the archives of our podcasts. I&#8217;ve spoken with three authors this month (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/04\/podcast-episode-85-author-steven-blush-on-1970s-world-team-tennis\/\">ep 85 on World Team Tennis<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/10\/podcast-episode-87-author-sasha-abramsky-on-lottie-dod-the-little-wonder\/\">ep 87 on Lottie Dod<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/16\/podcast-episode-88-author-david-berry-on-his-peoples-history-of-tennis\/\">ep 88 on A People&#8217;s History of Tennis<\/a>) and Carl has been interviewing writers for years (such as <a href=\"https:\/\/thirtylove.libsyn.com\/peter-underwood-on-the-pro-tennis-era\">Peter Underwood<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/thirtylove.libsyn.com\/julie-heldman-on-talking-tennis-and-mental-illness-and-narrating-her-tennis-memoirs-audiobook\">Julie Heldman<\/a>, to link just two).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We&#8217;ll have our discussion of <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3r5Rxgw\">A Handful of Summers<\/a> on the podcast in about a month, so you have plenty of time to read the book. At that time, we&#8217;ll also announce the next selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Happy reading!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carl Bialik and I are kicking off a new feature on the Tennis Abstract Podcast: a monthly* book club featuring various classics and curiosities in the game&#8217;s literature. * probably Our first selection is A Handful of Summers, by Gordon Forbes. Forbes, who died last week, was a long-time tour player from South Africa, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/17\/introducing-the-tennis-abstract-book-club\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Introducing the Tennis Abstract Book Club<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,53,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-podcast"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}