Long Island Tennis Magazine's Literary Corner

Need a quick summer read that will put a smile on your face? Thinking of a gift for a team captain? Don’t spend $20 on a gift card. You’ll find that Ode to Tennis (2017, Wild Creek Publishing Group, $9.95) by Barbara Wyatt with illustrations by Mario Barrera, might just fit the bill. Ode to Tennis...Read more

Bob Litwin ’s Live the Best Story of Your Life delivers great stories of change on so many levels. Bob’s ability to weed through peoples issues is truly remarkable. The clients make the changes, Bob is a true agent of change. The thing to know is Bob wasn’t always a Zen tennis master and legendary...Read more

Now available at Amazon.com, Facing Federer by Scoop Malinowski features more than 50 ATP players as they describe the actual experience of playing tennis against Roger Federer. The book also includes Federer interviews, media, celebrity, fan and insider perspectives of one of the greatest...Read more

I have a question: What percentage of tennis do you think is mental? I always thought it was a minimum of 50 percent and a maximum of 99 percent, depending on whom you play, the tournament and match score. As a junior USTA player and collegiate Division I player, I often wonder why most players don...Read more

It's a good thing the editors at Long Island Tennis Magazine asked me to review John McEnroe's book, You Cannot be Serious , because I discovered a big, fat lie on page 260. Describing a February 1991 match against his brother, Patrick, John McEnroe says he was serving at match point when a phone...Read more

If you think the main job of a sports memoir is to tell the athlete's story in his own voice, and that's a reasonable thesis, then you have to credit Jimmy Connors' book, The Outsider with accomplishing that. In the 416 pages of the book, the tennis fan is taken on a ride through the tumultuous...Read more

“If you ding it, just re-swing it. David E. Moe has written a book that will be of use to any tennis player if they are open to a multi-disciplinary guide to improving their game. The Making of a Winner: A Fable About the Power Within takes tidbits from sports psychology, biofeedback and Eastern...Read more

Boy, does this novel lay it on thick. It is full of references to the island in the title, the history of Wimbledon especially in the early 1960s and what could be construed to be a rather naive, worshipful take on the mating rituals of upper class Brits and colonials during that period. One...Read more

I am supposed to review books about tennis in this space, but every so often, a book comes along that weaves the tennis content with so much other profound content that the tennis parts seem secondary. Joel Drucker's Jimmy Connors Saved My Life is one such book. It's a great title for starters. The...Read more