brittak wrote:

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I am certainly looking forward to reading it as I love books that give some insight as to what goes on on the tour at all levels.

I have already bought it but handed it over to my kids to give me as a Fathers Day present in a few weeks time! So I will have to wait a few weeks more to enjoy. What thoughtful children I have!!

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 Ditto! Arent our kids great!

JonH wrote:

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brittak wrote:

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I am certainly looking forward to reading it as I love books that give some insight as to what goes on on the tour at all levels.

I have already bought it but handed it over to my kids to give me as a Fathers Day present in a few weeks time! So I will have to wait a few weeks more to enjoy. What thoughtful children I have!!

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 Ditto! Arent our kids great!

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Brittak you are an inspiration  

I've belatedly updated the title of this thread to refer to the book directly.

I'm rationing myself a bit, a chapter or two most days, but it's a very good read. I couldn't remember exactly when some key events happened and I certainly felt the "oh please let him finally get a point here" suspense, even though I remembered the basics of what transpired! The way the chapters develop makes the story work very well (don't worry Greg, your very slight shuffle of the chronology for the sake of the narrative was entirely justified!) and I like the way Greg doesn't concentrate solely on himself - in that context, the postscript, which I read when I was midway through the book (odd, because I'm not usually tempted to sneak a look at the end early!), and which covers what happened to some of the players mentioned earlier in the book, is an excellent addition, and even manages to turn the decade-long gap beteen the main narrative and the present day into an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

He really gives a good idea of what it's like to play in some of the places he visited. Although he's relatively rare (albeit not unique) in tackling the tour in his 30s with some of his own money behind him, he makes it easy to imagine most aspects of what the Futures circuit is like for a young player just starting out too, and Joe Cooper (young then and still grinding it out in Futures even now and an occasional forumite to boot) plays something of a starring (and sometimes comic) role at times!

Greg may not endear himself to British journos with his comments on their negativity, but I'd say he's just about spot on there, though they're definitely quite a lot more balanced now than they were 10 years ago, at the height of the Boggo-trashing campaign. I've even noticed that when my Tennishead articles get edited, there's a tendency to make the language more negative (not drastically so, but to the extent that nobody who knows me would possibly think they were my words), almost as if it's a reflex reaction - and that's from an editor who in every other respect has massively impressed me, making the back and forth editing process quick, extremely constructive and very instructive too.

The book could probably have done with some better editing for language (and I don't just mean the odd typo), but that would be my only criticism and I may be looking at that hyper-critically, simply because most of what I read is literary fiction (or non-fiction written by academics), probably with a much larger editing budget, rather than sports books.

I also have one personal bone to pick with Greg - in one quote from me, he (or his editor) has changed "got" to "gotten", an offence for which SC would probably have banned me from the forum 10 years ago, with some justification! - I did have to find this thread (*spoiler alert* for those who intend to read the book and weren't around in 2008 or have forgotten what happened then) http://britishtennis.activeboard.com/t19609106/week-32-futures-f3-15k-tehran-iran/?page=2&sort=oldestFirst to make sure I really hadn't said it, and was relieved to find I hadn't. There's another quote from me early in the book that makes absolutely no sense at all in context, but I imagine that was entirely my own fault! LOL

I can report that I saw the book on the tennis bookseller's stand at Surbiton - in fact, he was even reading it and it led to a good chat. He said he thought the 'aficionados' quotes really added something (and, unlike us, he's unbiased in that regard) and we may see him on the forum at some point.


Anyway, I'd say the book is a must-read for people like us and anyone who doesn't follow the lower levels of the game as much as we do but is interested in finding out more (which should ideally include lots of people at the higher levels of the game too!), and for anyone interested in what people trying to make their mark in an individual sport go through. It makes a more than decent adventure story / travelogue as well.

I'm going to mention it on Twitter soon, since there should be a particularly high correlation between following me there and being interested in the book, but it would probably help if there were a few more reviews on Amazon first and I don't want mine to be the first given that I'm mentioned in the book. So if you've read it and enjoyed it (or even if you haven't enjoyed it - I find balanced, clearly honest reviews to be more compelling anyway), I'm sure he'd appreciate you leaving a few words there.


P.S.

- I'd never realised a certain 'lad' could be so harsh, always seemed like such a nice guy to me

- I've just noticed there is now one review, so I'll add mine when I've finished the book, but I'm sure more of them would be appreciated

Stircrazy wrote:

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steven wrote:

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I also have one personal bone to pick with Greg - in one quote from me, he (or his editor) has changed "got" to "gotten", an offence for which SC would probably have banned me from the forum 10 years ago, with some justification!

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  Too right!  

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         Possibly the publisher wished Steven to come across less British for when the book hits the American market in 2019, hence the use of the Americanized "gotten"? Possibly the same when I called JohnnyLad a "smart ass"! 

gh wrote:

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Steven wrote:

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There's another quote from me early in the book that makes absolutely no sense at all in context, but I imagine that was entirely my own fault! LOL
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RobC: Greg Howe is the future of British Tennis!

Steven: Oops, it would have been good to look up the ages this week, obviously!

You're too harsh on yourself Steven. Your quote makes perfect sense. And having one 'aficionado' ripping another 'aficionado' in a public forum was too good an opportunity to miss! 

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Yes, that's the one! I hadn't even thought of that interpretation because I thought I only ever used things like "Oops" and "D'oh" to rip into my own mistakes. I guess that was around the time Count Zero used to rip me all the time (all in good fun - I even miss his presence on here sometimes, his posting tailed off after Boggo retired), so maybe I too was snarkier a decade ago!

As for "gotten", maybe you're right about the publisher's intentions. Very naughty though