String Theory: David Foster Wallace on Tennis: A Library of America Special Publication

If you were someone who harboured dreams of being a professional tennis player, then this is a must read. The writing feels overly descriptive at times when you're not in the mood for it, but there's no denying that DFW captures pro tennis like no other writer. I finished and felt genuinely sad that I'd never read his writing about the great tennis players ever again. What would he have made of Federer's revival? Things we will never know.This is a book I will read over and over. It needs to be up there with great books about sport.

I mean, really: the one about Federer and the one about Michael Joyce! The knowledge and the writing. If you care at all for tennis, and for writing, treat yourself to this one.

David Foster Wallace's book is a charming and unusual example of the meeting of high sport and high intellect. I think that many top sportsmen are very bright people but not many would have the combination of experience of elite competition and the extraordinary depth of vocabulary which enables Wallace to describe tennis at the highest level in the way that he does. His essay on Federer is well-known but I enjoyed his descriptions of his battles with Mid-Western wind and more physically gifted opponents just as much. He is never an easy read but if you want to give your brain cells a pre-Wimbledon work-out as well as your tennis arm, this is the book for you.

Brilliant writing and observations, although it probably helps, too, if you also love tennis.

The introduction from another writer is a bit wordy and trying to hard to match David Wallace's very witty and clever writing. The actual body of the book is very well written and in a supreme sarcastic tone. The chapters on his childhood, Joyce and Federer are especially worth a read. His thinking on tennis and the very peculiar and smart descriptions of how the game works at competitive levels (the harsh realities of high level tennis, the geometric / physics considerations to a tennis rally) genuinely surprised me. Loads of dry humour. A few chapters were rather wordy/lengthy for my taste such as the Quebec tournament or the non-tennis aspects of the US Open.

What a writer this guy is.

great

A little opaque and at times the analogy between tennis and 'string theory' can seem a little forced. A nice read nonetheless and arrived in good condition.