I became a tennis fan in the mid-2000’s, when Roger Federer reigned supreme. But here’s the thing – I wasn’t a huge fan of his. In fact, I found him boring, because he’d win just about every match. But then came this young Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who wore sleeveless shirts and capri pants and resembled a pirate – and I’ve been hooked ever since. I play the game to the best of my ability, which isn’t much; I’ve been told by my opponents that I’m quite annoying, in that I often manage to turn surefire winners into yet another rally. Porn-wise, no expertise whatsoever, outside of researching it for my second novel!
Let me just come right out and say it: this is a sad book. It’s a tragedy – like The Great Gatsby, Abraham plays the role of the narrator Nick Carraway while David Smith, an Australian doctor, becomes his unfortunate Jay Gatsby. The man is troubled (substance addiction), but what brings the two men born generations apart is the game of, you guessed it, tennis. (Sorry to disappoint, but not porn – though there is some sexual compulsion, so maybe a tiny bit?) What is most impressive about this work is Abraham’s restraint. There’s some high drama here, but he keeps it all in sensible, practical check, which is why it all feels so very real.
In January 1994, Abraham Verghese, an indian doctor in a Texan teaching hospital, was called to the morgue to identify the body of his close friend, student and tennis partner David Smith. David had killed himself because he could not deal with his addiction to intravenously injected cocaine. This book is Verghese's tribute to his dead friend; it is also an attempt to understand and explain drug addiction. Being both doctor and friend, Verghese offers us a unique insight into addiction, describing with clinical detachment the horrific physical symptoms of abuse, revealing how the stress of the medical profession leads…
I became a tennis fan in the mid-2000’s, when Roger Federer reigned supreme. But here’s the thing – I wasn’t a huge fan of his. In fact, I found him boring, because he’d win just about every match. But then came this young Spaniard Rafael Nadal, who wore sleeveless shirts and capri pants and resembled a pirate – and I’ve been hooked ever since. I play the game to the best of my ability, which isn’t much; I’ve been told by my opponents that I’m quite annoying, in that I often manage to turn surefire winners into yet another rally. Porn-wise, no expertise whatsoever, outside of researching it for my second novel!
If there’s a writer who could have written about tennis and pornography and made it work way better than yours truly, it is David Foster Wallace. But David did not waste his time on this planet (suicide in his 46th year) on idle silliness – no, he wrote essays like “Federer as a Religious Experience” for The New York Times, which is the fifth and final essay in his collection of his tennis nonfiction. Ranked nationally as a junior, David possessed intimate knowledge of the sport, and the first essay, “Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley,” indeed features a tornado that rips through team practice, but believe it or not, that natural disaster is not as frightening as the drudgery of tennis drills that he must master.
An instant classic of American sportswriting—the tennis essays of David Foster Wallace, “the best mind of his generation” (A. O. Scott) and “the best tennis-writer of all time” (New York Times)
Gathered for the first time in a deluxe collector's edition, here are David Foster Wallace's legendary writings on tennis, five tour-de-force pieces written with a competitor's insight and a fan's obsessive enthusiasm. Wallace brings his dazzling literary magic to the game he loved as he celebrates the other-worldly genius of Roger Federer; offers a wickedly witty disection of Tracy Austin's memoir; considers the artistry of Michael Joyce, a supremely…
In 2000, I entered the University of California, Irvine as an assistant professor. Suddenly faced with multiple research projects, courses, committees, grant-writing, and student mentoring, I found myself switching screens and tasks like crazy. But I was also glued to my computer. I began to wonder if this was normal? Trained as a psychologist, I decided to study empirically what was happening to our attention. I began research over two decades on attention and discovered how our attention spans have shrunk over time (to a mere average of 47 seconds). Fast forward, I've continued to study our relationships with our technology, uncovering different types of attention and busting myths associated with focus and productivity.
I started out my career path as an artist, and when creating art, I regularly got into a state of what is known as flow. Hours would pass before I realized that it was already deep into night and I should be at home.
We think we know what flow is but Csikszentmihalyi tells us what it really is—a combination of the right amount of challenge and skill. Flowdescribes a state when one experiences the ultimate form of creativity—when a person is so immersed in an experience that time doesn’t matter.
Learning why people pursue experiences that can get them into flow is fascinating. Few psychologists have presented such optimistic views of people as Csikszentmihalyi.
“Csikszentmihalyi arrives at an insight that many of us can intuitively grasp, despite our insistent (and culturally supported) denial of this truth. That is, it is not what happens to us that determines our happiness, but the manner in which we make sense of that reality. . . . The manner in which Csikszentmihalyi integrates research on consciousness, personal psychology and spirituality is illuminating.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
The bestselling classic that holds the key to unlocking meaning, creativity, peak performance, and true happiness.
Legendary psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's famous investigations of "optimal experience" have revealed that what makes an…
I am a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto who studies the social neuroscience of the self and human emotion, with a focus on how biases in self-representation shape emotional reactions that determine well-being. I am particularly interested in how cognitive training practices such as mindfulness meditation and yoga foster resilience against stress, reducing vulnerability to disorders such as depression. I’ve always wished we had better ways of communicating fascinating and important discoveries in neuroscience and mental health to a wider audience, so we combined our teaching experience in the fields of mindfulness, yoga, sports, and clinical psychology to write this book.
This book may seem out of place in a list of psychologically-minded self-help recommendations. And it is long, and hard to read. Don’t even get me started on the use of end-notes in a work of fiction. But it is quite simply one of the best books written in the past 100 years and it is all about people who have gotten stuck, trapped by habit or circumstance, and are yearning for a way to find meaning in life.
To me, this book is a self help book because it is written so powerfully (in a not-so-distance fictional future) that as the characters are inevitably transformed and sometimes freed from their assumed destinies, Wallace somehow illustrates how we too can be transformed in our daily routines and interactions by finding moments of clarity and meaning right where we are, rather than being saved by some outside force that promises liberation…
'A writer of virtuostic talents who can seemingly do anything' New York Times
'Wallace is a superb comedian of culture . . . his exuberance and intellectual impishness are a delight' James Wood, Guardian
'He induces the kind of laughter which, when read in bed with a sleeping partner, wakes said sleeping partner up . . . He's damn good' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
'One of the best books about addiction and recovery to appear in recent memory' Sunday Times
Somewhere in the not-so-distant future the residents of Ennet House, a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts, and students at the…
I’ve been fascinated by the link between golf and the Eastern arts since I heard the great Jack Nicklaus say that golf is played with the feet. This immediately struck a chord with me as my background spans over thirty years of Tai Chi training and I have understood from this art that all movement comes from the ground upwards. The early training of Nicklaus in fact echoes that of the ancient warriors who understood the link between intention and action, which is a very different approach to the modern way of over-thinking technique. The simplicity of flow cancels out the need to separate the golf swing into individual positions.
This is a breakthrough book that allows golfers the opportunity to step away from all the mental and technical thinking and into something simpler that can help release a golfer’s inner talents and abilities. The now-famous ‘club-throwing exercise’ is Shoemaker’s answer to Tim Gallwey’s ‘bounce-hit’ exercise in tennis which helps take the emphasis off trying to get technique right and instead allows the body to move in a way that is natural and therefore repeatable, even under pressure. So many of my students have benefited from the drills and exercises and the whole mindset of this book which details the possibilities inherent every time you set up to the ball.
Most golfers approach the tee with a complex mental package: worries and judgments about their swing, the other person's swing, the course, the weather, looking good, looking bad. They think about what's wrong instead of what's possible, and this is what Extraordinary Golf teaches: the art of the possible. Drawing on his experience teaching both amateurs and professionals for more than fifteen years, in his clinics around the country, in his Golf in the Kingdom seminars at the Esalen Institute, and at his own School for Extraordinary Golf in California, Shoemaker shows how extraordinary golf can be coached, learned, and…
Marty Devlin has lived a remarkable life from professional baseball player and All-American diver to college athletic director and tennis industry marketing executive.
His memoir shares an inspiring human-interest story of transformation and innovation. Now in his 90s, Marty golfs, swims, and teaches tennis. In sharing his life story, Marty shares lessons of creativity, leadership, goal setting positive self-change, motivation, problem-solving and so much more that will inspire anyone no matter their age.
I love playing with my kids. When my eldest was eight and we were sitting on the porch together he said, “On my last day of being playful, I want to play with you the whole day. I sure hope it’s on a Saturday.” My kids know that I turn most things into a game, that I’ll screech and stop for a tarantula on the road because it’s educational, that I'll get them to sing their quiz answers, and that I’ll sculpt a cake into almost anything for a school project. I believe learning should be fun, so we would drink lemonade out of measuring cups, guess how many hops from the bed to the closet, and have Whipped Cream Spray Wars every summer (outside, thank you). I also think families would spend more time together if they had a great collection of cool—and easy—stuff to do together. As a writer I’m creative, and never run out of fun ideas. Why not share them with the world?
I love science and this book specializes in astronomy. Nichols helps kids get excited about the night sky, planets, and much more. She shows them how to make their own telescope and uses a microwave and a chocolate bar to teach them about the speed of light. A great dip into a wonderful topic.
Explore the wonders of the universe through hands-on fun! In Astronomy Lab for Kids, science educator Michelle Nichols has compiled 52 labs and activities that use everyday materials from around the house to encourage kids, their friends, and their families to look up, down, and around at everything from the shadows on the ground to the stars in the sky.
Mini astronomers will learn about things such as the size and scale of planets using sandwich cookies and tennis balls, how to measure the speed of light with a flat candy bar and a microwave, how to make a simple…
I love writing about the dark side of human nature, and the devastating secrets and resentments that can simmer beneath the surface between friends before reaching boiling point in the most dramatic and sinister way. It’s a theme pivotal to my latest thriller, which sees friends reuniting in a beautiful yet isolated location for the seemingly perfect celebration, but where things go horribly wrong. I enjoy exploring this topic through multiple characters, all with their own dubious backstories that stir suspicion in readers’ minds and keeps them guessing, while the settings I use play a key role in enhancing that sense of unease and tension conducive to the classic whodunnit.
This addictive page-turner revolves around an extravagant hen party where bride-to-be Jen rents a luxury getaway on a private island.
The fact that the helicopter which brought the guests to the island won't be back for 72 hours ramps up the sense of impending doom and claustrophobia, this further enhanced when the wifi is cut off. I devoured the varied and well-rounded cast of characters, each with their own complex backstories, secrets, and agendas giving them a motive to kill.
When one of the guests disappears, they receive a message telling them that unless someone confesses her terrible secret to the others, their missing friend will be killed. This was such a clever idea and had me itching to know who in the group the message was aimed at.
Koontz hooked me as a reader devotee with Watchers. Along with hundreds of thousands of fans, I grew to love his (believable) talking dog character.
This non-fictional memoir of the retired service dog who shared her life with the Koontz family and their staff is incredibly special. Throughout the book are story vignettes with memory-sticking power, such as Koontz’s writing process and filtering publishing industry personalities through Trixie’s senses.
If you are a dog person or writer, this heartwarming tale will make you laugh, sigh, and cry.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In a profound, funny, and beautifully rendered portrait of a beloved companion, bestselling novelist Dean Koontz remembers the golden retriever who changed his life.
A retired service dog, Trixie was three when Dean and his wife, Gerda, welcomed her into their home. She was superbly trained, but her greatest gifts couldn’t be taught: her keen intelligence, her innate joy, and an uncanny knack for living in the moment. Whether chasing a tennis ball or protecting those she loved, Trixie gave all she had to everything she did, inspiring Dean and Gerda to trust their instincts…
I’ve loved, I’ve lost, and everything in between! Just like my protagonist, Jenna, in Just Call Me Confidence, life imitated art and I took a page from her “book,” having to begin anew. I’ve been the friend who has entertained all sorts of stories—sex, love, and rock n’ roll (wink, wink)—all without judgment. That role in my life continues, and what I’ve discovered in my “research” is this: Sex is wonderful, but there’s no greater joy than loving someone, even if it’s only for a little while. Read more about my take on sex, love, and rock n’ roll on my blog “Bone Up.”
I couldn’t compile a list of books without including Judy Blume. In the forty years since I read my first Blume novel, a lot of things have changed, and—many have stayed the same. Forever, first published in the mid-70s, is mildly erotic—and raw, and sensuous, and tender, and all the things that love and sex are. The sensual scenes are peppered in with great dialogue between the characters.
I especially love this book because no matter how many experiences I’ve had, I can still find a small piece of myself in protagonist Katherine—first sex, first love, first breakup, first death, and the many “firsts” that I’ve carried through my own life (divorce, pandemic, post-divorce love).
Forever may not always last, but it never fails to define chunks of our lives—always.
Forever is still the bravest, freshest, fruitiest and most honest account of first love, first sex and first heartbreak ever written for teens. It was a book ahead of its time - and remains, after forty years in print, a teenage bestseller from the award-winning Judy Blume.
With a contemporary cover, Forever is a teen classic ripe for a new generation of readers.
