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Humor, drama, and history on the links.
By George Plimpton
Plimpton spends a month on the professional tour, going up against Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and the imaginary Japanese admirals in his head that kept screaming instructions. Far more impressive, though, is Plimpton's ability to showcase the psychology of the game with highly entertaining, often hilarious honesty.
By Billy Mott
Mott didn't start writing until age 36, but his long experience as a caddy pays off with this tough, mesmerizing, and cliché-free debut novel. A former golf phenom who stopped playing due to a freak accident slowly discovers -- 20 years later -- that he can somehow still swing a club competitively.
By Mark Frost
The David and Goliath story of a match that changed American golf. Francis Ouimet, a young working-class amateur, takes on six-time British Open champion Harry Vardon, the inventor of the modern grip and swing, at the 1913 U.S. Open. The story is anything but predictable, mixing history, biography, and page-turning golf commentary into a seamless whole.
By John Updike
Updike, a devoted golfer, gathers together 30 favorite pieces on the game from 1959 to 1995: essays both serious and silly; short fiction turning on the game’s many frustrations and all-too-brief moments of elation; an instruction-book parody. Particularly delicious is a stitched-together trio of golf episodes from his acclaimed Rabbit Angstrom novels.
By Dan Jenkins
Jenkins covered 197 of golf's major U.S. championships over six decades for a variety of publications. This loose, humorous collection from the author of Semi-Tough expertly paints the details of golf's biggest moments and the idiosyncrasies of the game's most towering players. Readers will come to understand why Jenkins is often described as a modern-day Ring Lardner.
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With dates announced for his upcoming Old Ideas concert tour, we celebrate the inimitable Leonard Cohen: bard, survivor, legend. His most recent album is a return to form for the balladeer, exploring signature themes of lust and longing, spirituality and struggle, all overlaid with a droll sense of humor as familiar as Cohen's prophetic voice.
When Jack Luxton hears that his estranged brother has been killed in combat, long-buried memories begin to well up like groundwater, and difficult choices Jack thought he reconciled himself to years ago turn out to be close at hand. Man Booker Prize-winner Graham Swift's novel plumbs timeless themes of regret, renewal, and the bonds of love.
The opening story in Matthew Battles's electric collection, "The Dogs in the Trees", documents the inexplicable appearance of arboreal canines. Further gorgeous fantastika follows, producing a volume sure to draw comparisons to Borges and George Saunders.
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