A fine tennis advice book about having fun while making a better you.
Professional tennis coach Cootsona offers cuttingly humorous, brightly intelligent advice on how enthusiastic players can improve their games.
This debut guide is a seriously enjoyable work of tennis wisdom. Cootsona, who has spent the past 29 years on the court as an instructor, has somehow managed to keep his sense of play and a twinkle in his eye. But as he cracks wise, with quotes from Gandhi, Goethe, Nietzsche, Churchill, Yogi Berra, Huey Lewis and the News, and, of course, William of Ockham, his advice simply shines. He’s not a man with a system; instead, he advises readers to tailor their games to their own physical abilities, learning styles and playing personalities. Despite the sport’s “pervasive subtlety and illusive proficiency,” he points out that tennis comes down to core elements: Hit the ball in the court, seek simplicity, and use your head as well as your ground strokes. He urges readers to follow the “Three Commandments”: Get your first serve in, close on the short ball, and hit the ball back three or more times. Tennis isn’t complicated, Cootsona reminds readers, but it is difficult, so one word guides all of his pointers: practice. He has no qualms about dishing out his beliefs—what tools are best to have in one’s playing arsenal, why control is key, and why it’s important to have a positive disposition and play to one’s abilities and limits. He focuses on helping readers to learn how to play a good game and conduct oneself with grace on the court and in the world. Overall, he shows how it’s important to square the face of the racquet but also to square one’s mind.
A fine tennis advice book about having fun while making a better you.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-615-51381-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pro Tennis Press
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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