On Tennis, David Foster Wallace
On Tennis, David Foster Wallace
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On Tennis
Five Essays

Author: David Foster Wallace

Narrator: Robert Petkoff

Unabridged: 5 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/24/2014


Synopsis

From the author of Infinite Jest and Consider the Lobster: a collection of five brilliant essays on tennis, from the author's own experience as a junior player to his celebrated profile of Roger Federer at the peak of his powers. 

A "long-time rabid fan of tennis," and a regionally ranked tennis player in his youth, David Foster Wallace wrote about the game like no one else. On Tennis presents David Foster Wallace's five essays on the sport, published between 1990 and 2006, and hailed as some of the greatest and most innovative sports writing of our time.

This lively and entertaining collection begins with Wallace's own experience as a prodigious tennis player ("Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley"). He also challenges the sports memoir genre ("How Tracy Austen Broke My Heart"), takes us to the US Open ("Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open"), and profiles of two of the world's greatest tennis players ("Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff About Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness" and "Federer Both Flesh and Not").

With infectious enthusiasm and enormous heart, Wallace's writing shows us the beauty, complexity, and brilliance of the game he loved best.

Reviews

Goodreads review by casey on July 12, 2024

i wont make a challengers joke. really enjoyable in that “listening to someone talk about a topic theyre REALLY into” type of way. there’s just such a bingeable quality to dfw’s narrative voice for me like this really flew by. ill avoid re mentioning the tracy austin essay but derivative sport in to......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on April 24, 2017

Back and forth without being dreary Endless drills without feeling weary. A beautiful game Prose that puts us to shame. Essays about tennis: String Theory.......more

Goodreads review by Brad on August 20, 2016

I love tennis. I love David Foster Wallace. And I needed a book on the couch day after a gruelingly long week where I started feeling better and then was flattened this morning by a few spoons of my yogurt and peach breakfast. String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis was the second book I read t......more

Goodreads review by Flávio on June 25, 2023

David Foster Wallace é um génio......more

Goodreads review by Vishy on February 16, 2019

Ever since I discovered that David Foster Wallace's tennis articles have been compiled into one book, I have wanted to read it. What more can one want - one of the great contemporary writers writing on one of my favourite sports? What can be better? I finally got the book a few days back and read it......more