The Racket

Niland, Conor. The Racket: On Tour with Tennis's Golden Generation -- and the Other 99%. Dublin, Ireland: Sandycove (Penguin). 2025. Print.

First Sentences:

 

Behind every successful tennis player is a parent who refused to allow them to quit. I was ten when I first told my folks that I wanted to give it all up. They didn't yield then, and they never did. Tennis was our family business, and the stakes were made clear to me when I was young. 

Description:

I used to play a lot of tennis, from age eight through college and later as a teaching professional internationally. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I had the game, physicality, or mentality to compete on any professional level. Without formal lessons, playing rag-tag survival tennis with "interesting" shots (my Turn-Around-Jump-Reverse-Spin serve comes to mind), I knew early on there were way too many levels above me to delude myself into pursuing a playing career. But teaching tennis was for me a different story, one I could excel at and really loved.

For Conor Niland, an Irish tennis player in the early 1980s through the late 1990s, the professional dream was his reality. At least it was for his parents and subsequently his two older siblings who trained and joined the professional circuit. 

 

Niland's recent autobiography, The Racket: On Tour with Tennis's Golden Generation -- and the Other 99%, relates his ambitious climbs from playing on his backyard court under the stern instruction of his parents, through college in the United States, and then into the Futures Circuit (now ITF World Tennis Tour) for players ranked 500 or lower in the world. 

 

His first goal was to break away from the lowly Futures up into the Challenger Tour (for players ranked 100-500) and ideally into the elite ATP Tour of the top players ranked 1-100. Niland explains that each win in any tourney gave him ATP points, helping improve his ranking and placement in upcoming tournaments. A high enough ranking allowed him to enter the next prestigious level of tournaments with more luxuries, prize money and ATP points available.

I grew to like the atmosphere around the house on the morning of a final, my senses were always heightened. From the moment you woke up, every sound appeared that little bit sharper: the spoon hitting the cereal bowl, the bread popping out of the toaster. Everyone was dressed more smartly, and spoke in a quieter, softer tone.

Junior training had its ups and down for Niland. At twelve, he beat an unknown Roger Federer in straight sets. Later, when training at the Nick Bollettieri IMG Academy for two weeks, he noted that the facility is "a tennis zoo: kids are kept caged in courts all day and fed tennis balls," although the Academy did develop players including Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, Jim Courier, and Maria Sharapova.

His climb from the backyard upward, recounted on a tournament by tournament basis, reveals the trials and tribulations of a young player on his way up (hopefully), the goals he achieves along the way as well as the blown opportunities that might have helped him. His lifestyle and behavior are also laid out as he struggles with decisions faced both on-court and off. He recalls practice hitting sessions or matches with great players like Andy Murray, the Williams sisters, Andy Roddick and many others now lost in tennis obscurity. Along the way, Niland provides astute, fascinating comments about each player. 

It's not exactly right to say that the very top guys like Djokovic hit the ball much harder....But they hit it deeper, right to the baseline, and they do it relentlessly. It doesn't look like a big difference on TV, but that extra foot and a half of depth, over and over, is a killer. This didn't so much put me under pressure as put me under siege.

Traveling 35 weeks a year, he had no time for social relationships with women or player s concentrating on their own struggles to survive. Sometimes he played nine tournaments in ten weeks, flying all over the world from Doha to Chennai to Montreal to Switzerland to Banja Luka and on and on and on.

Expenses are also always in his mind. Can he afford  to pay a coach who could free him from the tedious requirements of finding hitting partners, give him professionals training and advice, and provide companionship as Niland travels weekly from country to country? How can he deal with the pressure of competition, knowing that a win would secure necessary funds and ATP points (not to mention necessities like travel expenses, equipment, and food), while a loss would lower his ranking? 

Along the way he also discusses his encounters with physiotherapists, gambling on matches, banned substances, sideline coaching, tennis parents, qualifying tourneys, wildcard entrances to the main draw, and even food poisoning at an inopportune moment.

 

I was totally involved with Conor Niland's life, his ambitions, his frustrations, and his day-to-day, tournament-to-tournament lifestyle. When he succeeded, I felt elation. When he stumbled (choked?), I honestly felt bad for him, a player I previously had never heard of.

There were matches in my career in which it felt as though what was at stake was not merely qualification, but my identity too....How long was I going to give it? I was going to give it years if it meant getting a few great hours in return.

Highly recommended for an insider's look into the everyday adder to tennis success and the impending slide back down that also awaits every player at every level.

 

[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:] 

  

McPhee, John. Levels of the Game.   

Point by point analysis of the 1978 US Open tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. McPhee takes readers inside the players' minds as they devise strategies, relish successes, and overcome missed opportunities. Provides the background and personalities which influence each player's shot selection, strategy, and mental game.

 

Happy reading.

Fred

 

Click here to browse over 435 more book recommendations by subject or title

(and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader).

  

Jim Murray: An Autobiography

Murray, Jim. Jim Murray, An Autobiography. New York: MacMillan 1993. Print.

First Sentences:

I was a Depression child. With all that connotes. That means you never trust the system again. You know what can happen to it. That means you  go through life never able to fully enjoy it. That means you have a ever-present sense of foreboding....I never quit a job in a huff. I swallowed guff. I don't recommend it. It's just the way I was.

 

Description:

Growing up in Southern California in the 1950s through the '70s, every day for me started with reading Jim Murray's sports column in the Los Angeles Times. He introduced me to the back stories of athletes, games, and sports history, all with wry wit and biting comments that made sports so much richer. What a wonderful introduction for a kid into the world of great writing, humor, and sports (or even today as an adult).

I recently discovered Murray had written his autobiography, cleverly titled: Jim Murray: An Autobiography. In this fast-paced book, Murray only sparingly writes about himself beyond his early life, preferring to focus on stories about the sports figures he had encountered and the condition of various sports themselves. 

Notable among the few stories about his youth are recollections about when he saw Babe Ruth hit a homer, or arranged neighborhood boxing matches among kids, or learned about the reality of sports from his Uncle Ed:

Never take money from an amateur -- unless he insists ...

Never play cards with a man with dark glasses or his own deck ...

Never make change for a guy on a train ... 

Murray prefers to throw the spotlight on the athletes he encountered and commentary on various sports throughout his career on the LA Times, Time, Life, and Sports Illustrated.

Time didn't linger at what happened. They wanted to know why it happened....They wanted the globally significant. And the writing had to be of a high literary order.

It's quite a world of people he covers in depth, including Walter O'Malley. Muhammed Ali, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Pete Rose, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Henry Aaron, Al Davis, Jack Kent Cooke ("a man in a hurray...as unstoppable as a glacier"), and so many more.

He offers several brief anecdotes about Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Ty Cobb, Magic Johnson, Sonny Liston, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Ted Williams, and on and on. Each tidbit is a gem of insider info into what makes that person unique, funny, talented, or ultra-driven.

The longest portions and best observations are reserved for the sports themselves that he loves: 

• Golf -
• Golf is the most maddening of games....The bleeding is internal in this sport.

• Auto racing - 
• [column headline] Gentlemen, Start Your Coffins 

• Baseball - 
• Baseball was always loath to enter the twentieth century. Baseball will always be three of more decades behind the rest of society. That's part of its charm.

• Boxing - 
• Jake LaMotta used to say he fought Sugar Ray Robinson six times and won all but five of them.

• Basketball -
• At the college and high school level, it used to be just something to go through to get to the dance afterward. The pros used to play wherever they could pass the hat and make bus money.....

There are pieced aplenty about my favorite Southern California teams (the Rams, Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, and Kings) and my boyhood baseball idols: Maury Wills (companion to Doris Day, who knew?), Jim Gilliam, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Steve Garvey, and Tommy Lasorda. 

I liked baseball. It was the right mix of competition, contemplation and calibration for me. A ball park is still one of the great relaxing venues. It is a great place for the leather-lunged fan to work out his aggressions but there is an undertone of "I'm just kidding' in the baseball fan's torrent of abuse. 

There is a really funny chapter detailing his columns which contained disparaging reflections about the cities hosting sporting events that he was covering.

• Long Beach, CA - The seaport of Iowa

• Los Angeles - Underpoliced and oversexed. Its architecture has been (accurately) described as "Early Awful"

• Philadelphia - A town that would boo a cancer cure...a place that even the British gave up without a fight.

• Oakland, CA - You had to pay fifty cents to go from Oakland to San Francisco. Coming to Oakland from San Francisco was free... that's all you have to know about Oakland.

• Cincinnati - If the Russians ever attacked, they would bypass Cincinnati, as it looked as if it had already been taken and destroyed.

There are some serious portions as well. He devotes a chapter each to his onset of blindness, his son's battle with drugs, and the death of his beloved wife. All are presented with genuine emotion and thoughtfulness as he contemplates the reasons behind these situations and his own role in each.

If you are a sports fan or just an admirer of clever, witty, insightful, and always humorous writing, I highly recommend getting to know Jim Murray and his brilliant observations of the games of the world.

There is no cult in the world like a busload of fans on their way to a home game....The home team wins, the world's gonna be all right. Food tastes better. Wives look prettier. Work gets easier. 

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

More book recommendations

About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Murray, Jim.. The Jim Murray Collection.   

The best collection of his columns covering baseball, boxing, tennis, hockey, strikes, and sport figures.

 

The Apprentice

Pepin, Jacques. The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen. New York: Houghton Mifflin 2003. Print.

First Sentences:

My mother made it sound like a great adventure.

Description:

Although I know next to nothing about food and its preparation, I still can appreciate quality writing and interesting, real-life stories from someone at the very top of this profession. Therefore, I highly recommend Jacques Pepin's autobiography, The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen for a glimpse into the world of kitchens, training, restaurants, and innovation by a renowned chef.

Pepin's mother opened a simple restaurant, Le Pelican, in rural France with a few recipes, no business experience, and certainly no restaurant training. Here Pepin and his brother Roland learned how to cook, clean, wait tables, and all other roles necessary to a professional enterprise. And where he learned to love cooking and restaurante, although his brother hated that life.

Pepin left school at 13 for Paris, boldly getting a position at Le Grand Hotel de l'Europe. More on-the-job training, growth, and then moving on to other restaurants. He climbs from being a gopher called "P'tit" [Kid] to tending a stove, an honor recognized when the chef finally drops the nickname and calls him by his real name, "Jacques." He moves up to be the commis [chef assistant] and finally head chef. Pepin brings readers into each kitchen and their head chefs, carefully describing the environment of a first-class restaurant and the tasks necessary to produce the highest quality food. 

There are humorous stories as well, as when the very young Pepin was sent by the head chef to several restaurants to pick up their "machine a dessosser les poulets [chicken-boning machine] from another restaurant. Each location had an excuse for not having that machine and sent him along to another location, over and over until Pepin returned sadly empty-handed to his chef. Only then did he realize there was no such machine and he had passed an initiation into the restaurant family. In another story, Pepin's love of juicy pears is tested as he sneaks one of the chef's "des poires avocat" [avocado pears], biting into the leathery skin and hard seed of an avocado for the first time.

Later, Pepin travels to New York and contrasts the restaurant standards and chefs with those from France. His experiences lead him in the 1960s to, of all places, Howard Johnson's restaurants to help them upgrade the quality of their food and make it consistent in all their one thousand restaurants, a unique concept at the time. Instead of cooking for only a few restaurant patrons, Pepin now learned how to prepare clam chowder, a HoJo specialty, in stockpots of 500 or 1000 gallons.

Story after story are simply told as if Pepin is sitting next to you recalling his life. He has a charming writing style that fully reveal the picture he is painting:

Then there was [the chef's] look, a look that will recur in my nightmares as long as I live, not so much a look of anger as one of disdain, a gaze that lasted but a fraction of a second, yet made it clear that your pathetic little error was far beneath the level of his contempt. 

From cooking for Charles de Gaulle to working with Julia Child and every other great chef, from writing the classic book on the exacting techniques of preparing and cooking to traveling the world conducting cooking workshops and television shows, Pepin shows he is a giant in the kitchen and the world of cooking. Highly recommended for lovers of food, kitchen life,and fine writing.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
________________________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Fechtor, Jessica. Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home. 

After a chef suffers an unexpected aneurysm, she rediscovers her love of cooking and eating. The book is filled with beautiful writing, recipes, and stories of the joy and struggles in her life. (previously reviewed here) 

Gaffingan, Jim. Food: A Love Story

The opposite end of the food spectrum. Stand-up comedian Gaffigan is a self-proclaimed "Eatie," who will eat and enjoy simple items like hamburgers. He reviews food choices in the United State and some international cuisines, as well as comments on several restaurants both ordinary and pretentious. Very funny. (previously reviewed here)

Britannia: Rowing Alone Across the Pacific

Fairfax, John. Britannia: Rowing Alone Across the Atlantic. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1971. Print.

First Sentences:

"Seven! Seven out!"

"Seven! Seven out!" Once more the recollection of those fateful words brought a savage curse to my lips; and the sight of the dark, majestic mass of Buckingham Palace, invoking visions of untold splendors within as it loomed in the mist of that chilly winter's night, did nothing to mitigate my fury.

Description:

John Fairfax is a man prone to whims. He calls himself a "professional adventurer," taking on menial jobs to finance the exotic challanges he dreams up. One such brainstorm in 1966 was to row a boat solo across the Pacific Ocean from England to the United States. With only a bit of sailing experience "as a pirate" on a fishing boat and no skill in rowing, no boat, and no financial backing (he's lost his stake gambling as in the quote above), he forges ahead anyways toward his goal. The resulting preparations and actual voyage are documented in his book, Britannia: Rowing Alone Across the Atlantic.

He talks Uffa Fox, England's premier boat-builder, into designing the perfect open-sea boat. Fox's creation, The Britannia, is 25 feet long with a rubberized self-righting chamber so the boat cannot capsize, self-drains any sea water from waves that crash over the sides, and has square oar-locks to assure perfect rowning style with minimal effort to position the oars for each stroke.

But why take on this task? It is the quest that catches his attention. He wants to be the first to row solo, as it had been done by a two-man boat once before.

I hate rowing.... [But then] why row across the Atlantic? Because, with a bit of know-how, almost anybody can sail, but I was after a battle against nature at its most primitive and raw. 

The actual voyage is fascinating. Fairfax recorded in his daily problems of storms, lack of sleep, sharks, sickness, loneliness, rowing time (over 12 hours per day), contrary winds, and almost being run over by passing boats. Navigation was by the stars and sun rather than computers, so cloudy days were problematic, as were unexpected currents and a balky radio antennae that kept him cut off from friends and family in London. He tossed out most of his food for taking up too much space and being disgustingly unflavorful, choosing to rely on spear fishing instead. Much of his success was determined by a Ronson lighter, the sole source of fire to start his tiny burner and cook food.

Fairfax is a survivor, a confident man willing to take chances to achieve his goal to reach the United States alive and in precisely the location he intended. No drifting around or being towed during the final 100 miles as he was tempted to do. 

I loved following his adventures, his matter-of-fact style of solving problems as well as his anger over daily misfortunes, like when dolphins attacked and ate all the fish that had been following his boat. A reader never feels any obstacle will prove too great to stop him and end his quest, and [spoiler alert] of course he reaches America exactly as planned. A true adventure, matched only by his next rowing trip, this time across the Pacific, as recounted in his next book, Oars Across the Pacific. Can't wait to read that one as well.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
________________________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Fairfax, John and Cook, Sylvia. Oars Across the Pacific

Fairfax rows across another ocean, this time the Pacific, this adventure undertaking with girlfriend Sylvia Cook.

I Hate Everyone Except You

Kelly, Clinton. I Hate Everyone, Except You. New York: Gallery. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

In the spring of 1982, I got it into my head that I needed, more than anything in the whole world, to visit Action Park in New Jersey.

The commercials, which played every seven minutes during the reruns of Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch, spoke to the deepest desires of the thirteen-year-old soul. 

Description:

Maybe not everyone knows Clinton Kelly, co-host for ten years of the television show What Not to Wear and current moderator of The Chew food show. The smiling, snarky Clinton who dished out clothing and now food advice, has just written an autobiography (actually a series of essays about his life) called, I Hate Everyone Except You and it's a laugh-out-loud triumph. For me, it's the funniest book since Jim Gaffigan's Food: A Love Story.

Kelly spins story after story of youth and hardly-overnight rise to celebrity fame, along with the people who showed up in his life to thwart or encourage his travel. For example:

• Memorizing dialogue from porn movies as a teen with friends, then re-run the film and recite the lines with strange emphasis or discussion as to motivation, character, etc. (His technique to actually rent these from the local video store is also fantastic);

• Preparing 100 story ideas in one day for his interview with Marie Claire magazine;

• Teaching his six-year-old sister cheerleading moves to make her popular once she gets to high school. This despite the awkward fact that Kelly knows nothing about football or cheerleading;

• On a friend's urging, asking the Universe for help, but only if he puts his complete trust in the Universe that it knows what you need. Two weeks later he got the audition for What Not to Wear

Here are a few other tidbits to judge his humor for yourself. Maybe he's not your thing, but to me I find his stories and writing clever and really funny. 

[On his little sister] - She had a steely poker face when confronted with disappointed authority figures....She would look you straight in the eyes like, You think I give a crap about your opinion of me? Granted, she was only six, but the kid had star quality.  

[On preventing a high school librarian from knowing he was looking through a medical reference book for pictures of penises] -  If I saw a librarian approach at any point, I would leap from my chair, heading her off at the pass, and ask her if she needed any help organizing the card catalog. "I just hate when people take the cards out and put them back in the wrong spot. The Dewey Decimal System only works when we all do our part."  

[Getting old] - The only time I see three a.m. now is when I have to get up to pee for the second time.

[His initial audition for What Not to Wear, providing ad-lib commentary on women walking down a street in Manhattan] - Suntan hose! How come nobody told me it was 1972 in Boca Raton?; You mom called, she wants her jeans back. And she's not sure who your father is; Honey, that much titty is completely inappropriate -- unless you're stripping or having a mammogram.

[On his WNTW co-host, Stacy London] -  I either adored her or despised her, and never anything in between, probably because we spent nearly sixty hours a week in captivity, rarely more than an arm's length away from each other. ...We were like a brother and sister trapped in the backseat during an excruciatingly long car trip. One minute wanting to play a game, the next wanting to kill the other for breathing.

[On his dog] - Mary is a human being trapped in a thirteen-pound Jack Russell terrier's body, albeit a human being who's obsessed with smelling random puddles of piss on the sidewalk. And so I give her everything she could ever need to live an emotionally fulfilling life: organic freeze-dried chicken, filtered water, treats baked in small batches by local artisans, weekend hikes on the Appalachian Trail, spa days, et cetera. 

[On a woman sitting in a coffee shop] - She has the most flawless golden skin I have ever seen. I don't know how she could possibly achieve such a color, except by sitting in the sun for no less or more than seven minutes a day, every day, and taking regular baths in rainbows and the blood of angels. 

[On an unsuccessful boyfriend] - The entire time Rick and I dated, I knew on some level that we shouldn't be together. When you regularly want to murder someone, usually it's a sign that things aren't "meant to be."  

[Moving to Sweden if Ted Cruz should be elected] - On paper Sweden seemed like the perfect place for us. Its people, for the most part, speak English, are immaculately clean, and appreciate a cute outfit from H&M. That's pretty much me in a nutshell.  

[If he were president] - I will require every citizen over the age of twenty-one to wait tables full-time for a minimum of two years....I just think it's important each of us experience the utter assholery of which our fellow American is capable while he's eating a pork chop.  If we're all concerned that tomorrow we may be the one treated like the lowly pissant, smiling like a lunatic for a 15 percent tip, we will all behave more civilly today  

Had to stop myself from sharing even more gems, so get it yourself and enjoy reading a witty author who can really make you laugh.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
________________________________________

Gaffigan, Jim. Food: A Love Story

By far the funniest book I have ever read, about Gaffigan and his encounters with food. He's an "Eatie" rather than a "Foodie," so is interested in every type of plain food, except vegetables. Not to be missed. (previously reviewed here)

A Life in Parts

Cranston, Bryan. A Life in Parts. New York: Scribner. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

She stopped coughing.

Maybe she'd fallen back asleep. Then suddenly vomit flooded her mouth. She grasped at the sheets. She was choking. I instinctively reached to turn her over.

But I stopped myself.

Why should I save her?

Description:

Bryan Cranston is a wonderful storyteller as demonstrated throughout his new autobiography, A Life in Parts. He recollects small snippets of stories from his interesting life, from the desertion of his aspiring-actor father, to his alcoholic mother who bought and sold junk at local flea markets, to traveling cross-country on motorcycles with his brother without a destination or time constraint.

It was on that motorcycle trip during six days of solid rain weathered under a picnic shelter that he decided to become an actor rather than the policeman he had been training for. 

I will pursue something that I love -- and hopefully become good at it, instead of pursuing something that I'm good at -- but don't love.

What other jobs did he have? Paperboy, lifeguard, house painter, hypnotist, truck loader -- each one described in witty detail and how each provided knowledge and human experiences that would prove useful in his later acting career.

When you first start out in the business, you have to expend a lot of energy. Hustling isn't complicated. How much energy you put out dictates how much heat you generate. I decided to be a furnace.

He acted in everything he could, especially commercials. One Mars candy bar ad required he rappel from a mountain, a skill he confidently told the audition director he had. Naturally, he never had been mountain-climbing before, but he hired a climber to teach him the ropes (literally) and after overcoming his fears, he mastered the skill and shone in the commercial.

And there are quirky things along the way. Since he whistled tunelessly on the television series, Malcolm in the Middle, he was paid by the ASCAP as the author and performer of music. He also danced down the street in tighty-whities underwear and once wore a coat of 75,000 live bees for an episode.

He was quick to point out the luck that came his way. The role in Malcolm gave him exposure, steady work, and opportunities to create a character. An episode on The X-Files with director Vince Gilligan showed Cranston could play a deranged man. When the Walter White role was created for the pilot of Breaking Bad, screenwriter Gilligan knew Cranston was the right man for this complex role.

Cranston studies people. characters, and himself in depth to understand what makes people tick, then uses that in his roles. It's fascinating to read his thoughts about struggling with a character, arguing with directors to make certain the character acts logically. It's a strong insight into the mind of an artist trying to make a figure come alive for audiences to understand and, good or bad, to accept as a person with real, honest motivations and personality.

My job was to focus on character. My job was to be interesting. My job was to be a completing. Take some chances. Serve the text. Enjoy the process.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
________________________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Wilson, Victoria. A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

Wonderful insider look at the life of this actress, from early vaudeville to dramatic roles with plenty of backstories about actors, acting, writing, and directors for any film buff. Absolutely splendid in every way. (previously reviewed here)

Lulu in Hollywood

Brooks, Louise. Lulu in Hollywood: Expanded Edition. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. 1974. Print

First Sentences:

The Brooks family were poor English farmers who came to America on a merchant ship at the end of the eighteenth century.

Description:

I had never heard of the silent film actress Louise Brooks, nor seen any of her films until I read a review of the movie Something Wild. The writer noted that the distinctive shiny black bob hairstyle worn by good/bad girl Melanie Griffith was a Louise Brooks-style wig. Jet black, helmet-short with a slight curl forward to her cheeks, Brooks'/Griffith's hair signaled self-confidence, modern chic, and a bit of reckless danger. Griffith's alluring hair and innocent/naughty personality makes Jeff Daniels drop his normal life and take off with her on a roller coaster ride into the unknown of spontaneity, passion, and danger. I figured that Louise Brooks who first sported this cut must have been an equally exotic actress on the screen, so I looked her up and stumbled on Lulu in Hollywood, her autobiography.

Louise Brooks wrote many insightful articles about Hollywood, her early life, movie production and the people of the early 1920s. Her style is confident and brave, willing to call everything as she sees it. These articles were combined to create this book, the ultimate insider's guide to life in Hollywood and silent films. 

Picked out from the chorus line in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1925, Brooks was offered, at eighteen, a five-year contract by both MGM and Paramount studios simply on the basis of her on-screen smoky looks and manner. She began making films for the glamor and for something to do, although her heart had been set on becoming  a great dancer, having trained and toured with the prestigious Denishawn dance company that included Martha Graham.

The famous haircut came to be when the Kansas-born Brooks tried to shake off her flat accent, dull clothes, and mousy appearance to imitate the style, sophistication, and stature of her friend and famous actress, Constance Bennett. The change was astonishingly effective. Brooks' interview in Photoplay magazine sums up Brooks' striking aura during an interview conducted while Brooks reclined in bed:

She is so very Manhattan. Very young. Exquisitely hard-boiled. Her black eyes and sleek black hair are as brilliant as Chinese lacquer. Her skin is white as a camellia. Her legs are lyric." 

In her first twelve months in Hollywood, she made six full length films. While never a great actress, Brooks had a presence that could not be denied. Her combination of innocence and implied promise of sex made her a star, earning her $1,000 per week while other stars made half that amount. Her greatest triumphs, Pandora's Box and Diary of a Lost Girl, were filmed the next year in Berlin by Georg Pabst, the only director who saw her potential as an actual actress rather than a sultry, sexy piece of the scenery. 

But Hollywood soon lost its appeal to her. She constantly refused to be under the domination of any director, producer, or even studio, an attitude that soon made her an actress few wanted to work with. By the 1930s, her parts had dried up. She made her final eight movies between 1930-1938, then voluntarily left Hollywood for good, never looking back.

Brooks is a wonderful teller of tales, recalling with a photographic memory conversations and activities of Tallulah Bankhead, Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst, Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, and W.C. Fields among many others. There are sad recollections of suicides, of alcohol and drugs, and of doomed sexual encounters of those involved in the film industry. She also provides fascinating insider opinions about why the studios  deliberately killed the careers of great actresses like Lillian Gish and Greta Garbo. 

But there are also glowing tales of her friends like Chaplin, Fields, Bogart, and others. She candidly recounts her own relationships with directors, actors, and even stunt men, powerful men who financially and emotionally supported her to a life of style and luxury. Hers is a story of strength and confidence, of living in the Hollywood world of falseness and degradation. 

In writing the history of a life I believe absolutely that the reader cannot understand the character and deeds of the subject unless he is given a basic understanding of that person's sexual loves and hates and conflicts. It is the only way the reader can make sense out of innumerable apparently senseless actions.

The book also includes a fascinating introduction to her life by movie critic Kenneth Tynan. He details his research into Brooks' life, his experience watching her on the big screen in the few remaining copies of her films, and then actually meeting her for an extended interview when she was in her sixties. One of the highlights of the book is when these two film lovers look through her photo collection while Brooks recounts the good and sordid about the people of her life.

It is an insider's story that is not about the making of movies but about the people who make them, their strengths and weaknesses, and the sordid environment of young people striving to succeed in their careers and relationships. It is not a pretty picture she describes, but to me it is a completely honest, fascinating, and lurid description of that world of film-making that seems so exciting, yet so harsh.

Her favorite quote from Goethe sums up her life:

For a person remains of consequence, not so far as he leaves something behind him, but so far as he acts and enjoys, and rouses others to action and enjoyment.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Wilson, Victoria. A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

My favorite book of Hollywood, movies, actors, private lives the workings behind making a successful and not-so-successful film, and of course, the fantastic actress and person, Barbara Stanwyck. Very highly recommended. (previously reviewed here)

Mud, Sweat, and Tears: The Autobiography

Grylls, Bear. Mud, Sweat, and Tears: The Autobiography. New York: William Morrow. 2012. Print

First Sentences:

The air temperature is minus twenty degrees.

I wiggle my fingers, but they are still freezing cold. Old frostnip injuries never let you forget. I blame Everest for that.

Description:

Feeling a bit tired today? Under the weather? Is it inconveniently rainy and cold outside? Did your boss say some hurtful things to you? Maybe those chores around the house just seem too daunting. Is a nap your primary goal for the day?

Well, I've got the antidote to feeling sorry for yourself: Bear Grylls' autobiography, Mud, Sweat, and Tears,  Grylls, the world-wide celebrity renowned for his ultra-survival television series Man vs. Wild, recounts everyday occurrences he experiences in his life that put our petty complaints to shame. He faces more inclimate weather, strength-sapping hikes, and sleep deprivation in one week than all of us together experience in our lifetimes. But he loves it and rises to every challenge. Here is a man who chooses the hard road, forces himself to conquer tasks, and, upon completing the job, looks around for something else to do that is even harder. For that he is a person thrilling to read about, even if we do it from our comfy couch in front of a warming fire. 

A former member of the elite British Special Air Services (SAS) force, Grylls is also one of the youngest men to have scaled Mt. Everest, a black belt karate expert, and a survivor of a horrific parachute accident - all before he was 25 years old. Mud, Sweat, and Tears carefully puts readers in Grylls' mind as he experiences each step.

The big three of any quality read are, of course, characters, story, and writing style. Having two of these can overcome a weakness in the third. Grylls offers all the plot and character you could want in any book. If at first his writing seems a bit bland and not on the same level as the other two criteria, wait just a minute. By relying on plain facts, observations, and emotions rather than fanciful descriptions, Grylls lets readers focus on the actions and characters without being caught up in overly embellished phrasings and descriptions. I found the beauty of this book to be its straightforward, clear of narration of its many spectacular escapades. What I initially thought would be a weakness to Mud, Sweat, and Tears actually is one of its strengths.

Witness the opening sentences, simply written but tightly focused to reveal compelling details. You can't help but be yanked into the next pages of the book to answer questions. Where is he that is so cold? Is he injured? And what's this about a previous Everest experience? With each sentence Grylls lures you on further and further as any great storyteller does. You simply must read on, heart in your throat, marveling at his tenacity, strength and will.

His words are simple and honest as he talks about his childhood freely roaming the wilds of Northern Ireland and Isle of Wight, as well as his rude awakening to bullying in a private boarding school. Eton University introduces him to lifelong friends in mischief as well as mountaineering, karate (to protect himself from bullies), and the possibility of joining the British special forces. The training for this elite group is unbelievably daunting. No one is failed if he can achieve the goals (run up hills in full packs, cross-country rendezvous without maps, hike in freezing cold through swampy lands, etc.). Most trainees just give up and are escorted to waiting trucks to remove them from this crushing life.

I had a hunger to push myself, and I found out that I could dig very deep when I needed to. I don't really know where or how this hunger came about, but I had it. I call it "the fire."

After injuries force him out of the elite SAS, he reevaluates his life and choices. 

I had come within an inch of losing all my movement and...still lived to tell the tale. I had learned so much but above all, I had gained an understanding of the cards I had been playing with. The problem was that I had no job and no income.

So he reinvents himself from an elite soldier into a mountain-climber of the highest order. As he trains for the Everest trip, he again lets readers see what he sees, understand each thought he has, feel each step in the biting cold as he trudges upward en route to the summit. 

It was like climbing a mountain of waist-deep molasses while giving someone a fireman's carry, who, for good measure, was also trying to force a pair of frozen socks into your mouth.

Throughout his later success of giving travel and motivational presentations to corporations worldwide and starring in his Man vs. Wild television series (global audience of 1.2 billion people in 180 countries), Grylls stresses his love of "the focus, the camaraderie, and above all the acquiring of an art that requires the use of guile over power, technique over force." His favorite quotation is from John F. Kennedy:

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

These guiding tenets strengthen him as he faces each new, more difficult challenge. While you may secretly dream you could survive these tests as he does, deep down (or maybe not so deep) you know you would have given up long ago.

This is a great tale of personal triumph, of a man who continually seeks out and then rises to conquer challenges. Throughout he maintains a love of nature, of perseverance, and of self-confidence in the ability to dig deep down for that final bit of energy. It's satisfying to know that, while I cannot do any of these things, there is a man out there who epitomizes the strength of will to never give up, to find a way to take just one more step without complaint in order to accomplish his goal. Admirable and fascinating on every level.

I am ordinary, but I am determined.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shakleton's Incredible Voyage

Historic account of Ernest Shakleton's ill-fated voyage in 1914 to the Antarctic in a quest to reach the South Pole, only to find his ship and crew locked in by ice, with the only possibility of survival to hike across the froze wasteland pulling boats and then sailing to find help. Astonishing.

Grylls, Beat. A Survival Guide for Life: How to Achieve Your Goals, Thrive in Adversity, and Grow in Character

Wisdom and skills learned from Grylls' adventures that can be applied to everyday occurances in one's life, helping to find the strength to push on when faced with advesity.