{"id":4074,"date":"2021-01-20T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2021-01-20T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=4074"},"modified":"2021-01-20T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T19:04:09","slug":"podcast-episode-91-book-club-a-handful-of-summers-by-gordon-forbes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/20\/podcast-episode-91-book-club-a-handful-of-summers-by-gordon-forbes\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast Episode 91: Book Club: A Handful of Summers by Gordon Forbes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Episode 91 of the Tennis Abstract Podcast<\/a>, with Carl Bialik, of the Thirty Love podcast<\/a>, recaps the first installment of our book club, on A Handful of Summers<\/a> by Gordon Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forbes’s book, first published in 1978, is a well-regarded memoir of 1950s and 1960s amateur tennis, and a timely read, as the South African died last month, aged 86. Carl and I talk about what we learned about pre-Open Era tennis, what set Rod Laver apart from his peers, how Forbes stacked up as a player, and whether the lifestyles of amateur and pro players were really so different. We also address the tricky subject of how to read a memoir with very of-the-time attitudes toward women, barely an acknowledgement of apartheid, and a 2017 prologue that has nothing to say about either issue. Despite those reservations, there’s much in the book to appreciate<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The TAP book club will reconvene in about one month with our next pick, John Updike’s 1968 novel, Couples<\/a>. While the book is about much more than tennis, novelist Benjamin Markovits (a Thirty Love guest<\/a>) gave it a place on his list<\/a> of favorite tennis books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fans of the TA podcast will also want to check out Dangerous Exponents<\/a>, the new Covid-19 podcast that Carl and I are doing. Later today, we’re releasing our 10th episode, about the tradeoffs faced by hospitals and policymakers between minimizing deaths and optimizing for other health-related outcomes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\nhttp:\/\/tennisabstract.com\/podcast\/TennisAbstractPodcast-episode091.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n\n\n\n

(Note: this week’s episode is about 48 minutes long; in some browsers the audio player may display a different length. Sorry about that!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click to listen<\/a>, subscribe on iTunes<\/a>, or use our feed<\/a> to get updates on your favorite podcast software.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Episode 91 of the Tennis Abstract Podcast, with Carl Bialik, of the Thirty Love podcast, recaps the first installment of our book club, on A Handful of Summers by Gordon Forbes. Forbes’s book, first published in 1978, is a well-regarded memoir of 1950s and 1960s amateur tennis, and a timely read, as the South African … Continue reading Podcast Episode 91: Book Club: A Handful of Summers by Gordon Forbes<\/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":[14,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","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\/4074","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=4074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}