Levels of the Game, John McPhee
Levels of the Game, John McPhee
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Levels of the Game

Author: John McPhee

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Unabridged: 3 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 10/04/2022

Synopsis

This account of a tennis match played by Arthur Ashe against Clark Graebner at Forest Hills in 1968 begins with the ball rising into the air for the initial serve and ends with the final point. McPhee provides a brilliant, stroke-by-stroke description
while examining the backgrounds and attitudes which have molded the players' games.

About John McPhee

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at Time magazine and led to his long association with The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. Also in 1965, he published his first book, A Sense of Where You Are, and in the years since, he has written over thirty books, including Oranges, Coming into the Country, The Control of Nature, The Founding Fish, Uncommon Carriers, and Silk Parachute. Encounters with the Archdruid and The Curve of Binding Energy were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. McPhee received the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1977. In 1999, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Vaidya on March 21, 2015

There is a The Master of Go feel to this book. Two players squaring off, their backgrounds, how that decides what they are, the political and social undercurrents of that time, etc. While Kawabata's protagonists represented different ages and the different ways of playing the game, McPhee's are of t......more

Goodreads review by Aaron on August 14, 2014

Holy shit, this book is good. It's obvious DFW loved it/McPhee. It reminded me, though I'd be hardpressed to put into words why, a bit of W.C. Heinz's The Professional. Mostly just because I so loved both? Heinz's book is a novel, whereas this is nonfic, but there's something about boxing and tennis......more

Goodreads review by Joe on January 22, 2019

This was not a book I'd typically be interested in, but I heard about it, saw it was under 200 pages, and gave it a shot. This is a sports novel. The sport is tennis in the 1960s. The book covers a semifinal match in the first US Open between two men at the top of their game. The author takes you th......more

Goodreads review by Jon on February 05, 2025

Tim Ferris said this may be the best piece of sports journalism ever. I see why.......more

Goodreads review by Emily on April 30, 2024

Finding a John McPhee book has felt like destiny both times it has occurred. Last time a book on oranges, this time a full 147 page book on a single tennis match in 1968 between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. The book is of course about the match but McPhee provides birds-eye views from various per......more

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