-
On Tennis
- Five Essays
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $11.39
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Pale King
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has.
-
-
Compelling Profound Book about Tedium
- By Steve Canyon on 06-02-12
-
Consider the Lobster (A Story from Consider the Lobster)
- And Other Essays
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace, Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures.
-
-
How this differs from the other version
- By Jonathan Penley on 12-26-17
-
The Inner Game of Tennis
- The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
- By: W. Timothy Gallwey
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Inner Game of Tennis is a revolutionary program for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. This classic best-seller can change the way the game of tennis is played.
-
-
For anyone who wants to perform
- By Casper Paludan on 07-23-14
-
The Master
- The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer
- By: Christopher Clarey
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been other biographies of Roger Federer, but never one with this kind of access to the man himself, his support team, and the most prominent figures in the game, including such rivals as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Roddick. In The Master, New York Times correspondent Christopher Clarey sits down with Federer and those closest to him to tell the story of the greatest player in men's tennis.
-
-
Roger, voiced by Schwarzenegger
- By S. Armour on 08-27-21
-
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
- Essays and Arguments
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Paul Garcia
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction.
-
-
Wonderful book, terrible narration!
- By Karen on 08-20-13
-
Winning Ugly
- Mental Warfare in Tennis - Lessons from a Master
- By: Brad Gilbert, Steve Jamison
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He's been called the best in the world at the mental game of tennis. Brad Gilbert's strokes may not be pretty, but looks aren't everything. He has beaten the tour's biggest names - all by playing his "ugly" game. Now, in Winning Ugly, Gilbert teaches recreational players how to win more often without necessarily even changing their strokes. The key to success, he says, is to become a better thinking player - to recognize, analyze, and capitalize. That means out-thinking opponents before, during, and after a match - forcing him or her to play your game.
-
-
Tried and True
- By Professor Hardcore on 09-12-18
By: Brad Gilbert, and others
-
The Pale King
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has.
-
-
Compelling Profound Book about Tedium
- By Steve Canyon on 06-02-12
-
Consider the Lobster (A Story from Consider the Lobster)
- And Other Essays
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace, Robert Petkoff
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a funny bone? What is John Updike's deal, anyway? And what happens when adult video starlets meet their fans in person? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in essays that are also enthralling narrative adventures.
-
-
How this differs from the other version
- By Jonathan Penley on 12-26-17
-
The Inner Game of Tennis
- The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance
- By: W. Timothy Gallwey
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Inner Game of Tennis is a revolutionary program for overcoming the self-doubt, nervousness, and lapses of concentration that can keep a player from winning. This classic best-seller can change the way the game of tennis is played.
-
-
For anyone who wants to perform
- By Casper Paludan on 07-23-14
-
The Master
- The Long Run and Beautiful Game of Roger Federer
- By: Christopher Clarey
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been other biographies of Roger Federer, but never one with this kind of access to the man himself, his support team, and the most prominent figures in the game, including such rivals as Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Roddick. In The Master, New York Times correspondent Christopher Clarey sits down with Federer and those closest to him to tell the story of the greatest player in men's tennis.
-
-
Roger, voiced by Schwarzenegger
- By S. Armour on 08-27-21
-
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
- Essays and Arguments
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Paul Garcia
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction.
-
-
Wonderful book, terrible narration!
- By Karen on 08-20-13
-
Winning Ugly
- Mental Warfare in Tennis - Lessons from a Master
- By: Brad Gilbert, Steve Jamison
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He's been called the best in the world at the mental game of tennis. Brad Gilbert's strokes may not be pretty, but looks aren't everything. He has beaten the tour's biggest names - all by playing his "ugly" game. Now, in Winning Ugly, Gilbert teaches recreational players how to win more often without necessarily even changing their strokes. The key to success, he says, is to become a better thinking player - to recognize, analyze, and capitalize. That means out-thinking opponents before, during, and after a match - forcing him or her to play your game.
-
-
Tried and True
- By Professor Hardcore on 09-12-18
By: Brad Gilbert, and others
-
Open
- An Autobiography
- By: Andre Agassi
- Narrated by: Erik Davies
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Andre Agassi, one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court, a beautiful, haunting autobiography. Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every pivotal match and every relationship. Never before has the inner game of tennis and the outer game of fame been so precisely limned. In clear, taut prose, Agassi evokes his loyal brother, his wise coach, his gentle trainer, all the people who help him regain his balance and find love at last with Stefanie Graf.
-
-
Just an Incredible Story!
- By Patrick on 12-13-09
By: Andre Agassi
-
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Cerveris, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Highlights
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Foster Wallace made an art of taking readers into places no other writer even gets near. In his exuberantly acclaimed collection, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, he combines hilarity and an escalating disquiet in stories that astonish, entertain, and expand our ideas of the pleasures that fiction can afford.
-
-
ABRIDGED
- By Pete Kanuika on 01-13-17
-
Everything and More
- A Compact History of Infinity
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Part history, part philosophy, part love letter to the study of mathematics, Everything and More is an illuminating tour of infinity. With his infectious curiosity and trademark verbal pyrotechnics, David Foster Wallace takes us from Aristotle to Newton, Leibniz, Karl Weierstrass, and finally Georg Cantor and his set theory. Through it all, Wallace proves to be an ideal guide - funny, wry, and unfailingly enthusiastic. Featuring an introduction by Neal Stephenson, this edition is a perfect introduction to the beauty of mathematics and the undeniable strangeness of the infinite.
-
-
Equations via audio are tuff
- By Brian E. on 03-08-22
-
This Is Water: The Original David Foster Wallace Recording
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace
- Length: 24 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Only once did David Foster Wallace give a public talk on his views on life, during a commencement address given in 2005 at Kenyon College. This is the audio recording of David Foster Wallace delivering that very address. How does one keep from going through their comfortable, prosperous adult life unconsciously? How do we get ourselves out of the foreground of our thoughts and achieve compassion? The speech captures Wallace's electric intellect as well as his grace in attention to others.
-
-
The best 20 minutes of my life.
- By John Nosal on 10-09-12
-
David Foster Wallace: In His Own Words
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: David Foster Wallace
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Collected here for the first time are the stories and speeches of David Foster Wallace as read by the author himself. Over the course of his career, David Foster Wallace recorded a variety of his work in diverse circumstances - from studio recordings to live performances - that are finally compiled in this unique collection.
-
-
The best book on Audible!
- By Karen Chance on 04-07-16
-
Infinite Jest
- By: David Foster Wallace
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 56 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.
-
-
5.0 stars..... quite an experience
- By james on 04-25-17
-
But Seriously
- By: John McEnroe
- Narrated by: John McEnroe
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
He is one of the most controversial and beloved athletes in history, a tennis legend and a volcanic, mesmerizing presence. But after reaching the top of his game - what came next? Fifteen years after his international number-one best seller You Cannot Be Serious, John McEnroe is back and ready to talk. Now the undisputed elder statesman of tennis, McEnroe has won over his critics as a brilliant commentator at the US Open, Wimbledon, and other Grand Slam tournaments.
-
-
Seriously a good read!
- By Sara Sue on 09-19-18
By: John McEnroe
-
Late to the Ball
- Age. Learn. Fight. Love. Play Tennis. Win.
- By: Gerald Marzorati
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Being a man or a woman in your early 60s is different than it was a generation or two ago, at least for the more fortunate of us. We aren't old...yet. But we sense it coming: Careers are winding down, kids are gone, parents are dying (friends, too), and our bodies are no longer youthful or even middle-aged. Learning to play tennis in your 50s is no small feat, but becoming a serious, competitive tennis player at the age of 60 is a whole other matter.
-
-
It’s all here. Everything you need to know.
- By BENJAMIN on 11-21-19
By: Gerald Marzorati
-
The Eternal Summer
- By: Curt Sampson
- Narrated by: Dennis McKee
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1960 was the year that the sport of golf and its vivid personalities exploded on the consciousness of the nation, when the past, present, and future of the game collided. Television, still a new medium, provided a fresh window to this fascinating show and enabled this "rich man's sport" to win over millions of new fans.
-
-
Good blow-by-blow account of the 1960 Golf Season
- By Trip von Minden on 08-30-13
By: Curt Sampson
-
Rafa
- By: Rafael Nadal, John Carlin
- Narrated by: Bernardo Cubria, Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What makes a champion? What does it take to be the best in the world at your sport? Rafael Nadal has the answers. In his memoir, written with award-winning journalist John Carlin, he reveals the secrets of his game and shares the inspiring personal story behind his success.
-
-
Great insights on Nadal's life and on being a #1
- By Julian Cohen on 11-01-20
By: Rafael Nadal, and others
-
A Champion's Mind
- Lessons from a Life in Tennis
- By: Pete Sampras, Peter Bodo
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pete Sampras is arguably the greatest tennis player ever, a man whose hard-nosed work ethic led to an unprecedented number one world ranking for 286 weeks, and whose prodigious talent made possible a record-setting 14 Grand Slam titles. While his more vocal rivals sometimes grabbed the headlines, Pete always preferred to let his racket do the talking. Until now.
-
-
Not As Strong As His Forehand
- By A. M. Dalessandro on 07-21-09
By: Pete Sampras, and others
-
On Writing
- A Memoir of the Craft
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Joe Hill, Owen King
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy best seller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.
-
-
Who needs a print edition when King reads King?
- By Cather on 11-18-05
By: Stephen King
Publisher's Summary
From the author of Infinite Jest and Consider the Lobster: A collection of five brilliant essays on tennis, from the author's own experience as a junior player to his celebrated profile of Roger Federer at the peak of his powers.
A "long-time rabid fan of tennis," and a regionally ranked tennis player in his youth, David Foster Wallace wrote about the game like no one else. On Tennis presents David Foster Wallace's five essays on the sport, published between 1990 and 2006, and hailed as some of the greatest and most innovative sports writing of our time.
This lively and entertaining collection begins with Wallace's own experience as a prodigious tennis player ("Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley"). He also challenges the sports memoir genre ("How Tracy Austen Broke My Heart"), takes us to the US Open ("Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open"), and profiles of two of the world's greatest tennis players ("Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff About Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness" and "Federer Both Flesh and Not").
With infectious enthusiasm and enormous heart, Wallace's writing shows us the beauty, complexity, and brilliance of the game he loved best.
More from the same
What listeners say about On Tennis
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 01-27-17
Inspiration, though, is contagious, and multiform
One of the benefits of this book is it allowed me to read some of my favorite David Foster Wallace essays (on Tennis) and introduced me to several I had somehow missed. This small collection (138 pages) contains the following essays:
1. Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley - aka "Tennis, Trigonometry, Tornados: A Midwestern Boyhood" in Harpers (December 1991)
2.How Tracy Austin Broke my Heart - Originally Published in Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
3. Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff About Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness - AKA "The String Theory" in Esquire (Sep 17, 2008)
4. Democracy and Commerce at the U.S. Open - Tennis Magazine (September 1996)
5. Federer Both Flesh and Nott - AKA "Roger Federer as Religious Experience" in New York Times, (August 20, 1996)
Anyway, I still love DFW. And loved rereading most of them and am still amazed at DFW's ability to infuse his writing with passion, maths, and somehow translate the kinetic beauty of Tennis specifically, but sports also into the written word. I hate to overplay it, but sometimes I feel the same way with DFW talking about Tennis as I felt when I read Tolstoy talking about God or Melville or Conrad about the Sea. His writing at moments when he is talking about trigonometry, athletic achievement, and velocity, becomes both flesh and light. One of my favorite lines, I think it may have been from the second essay about Tracy Austin, he talks about Michael Jordan "hanging in midair like a Chagall bride". Perfect.
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark
- 06-05-16
A must have for tennis enthusiasts
David Wallace was a master of his trade. I will venture that practically anyone will enjoy this book of five essays. I've read through it multiple times now and it's always entertaining. If you like tennis you will surely find this book to be a favorite. If you ever picked up "Infinite Jest" and weren't enthralled (as some of his fans are) don't worry, this is well written nonfiction essays, and it's a very engaging read.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael Friedman
- 08-06-15
A great writer at his best
One of America's greatest, a fine tennis player as a young man whose prose and observations make this among the best sports books of American literature. Not since Halberstam's The Amateurs has a short book so beautifully illuminated a sport that it actually transcends sport itself. Wallace never intended these articles to be accumulated in an audiobook, but we are all the better for the efforts of Hatchette Book Group.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Janet B
- 02-18-22
He got it!
Excellent writing and understanding of the love of tennis! Must read for all tennis fans.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 07-07-20
For the love of tennis
David Foster Wallace's genuine love for tennis comes through during every essay in this book.
It is refreshing to listen to someone who truly loves and appreciates an activity as much as David does with tennis.
What makes this book exceptional is the inspiration you can get when you go "all in" with something in life.
David played tennis, watched tennis, followed tennis, wrote about tennis and philosophized about tennis.
My take away from this book is to focus on the activities in my life I love and develop mastery with them, but have a sense of realism about my abilities.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sean Vikoren
- 02-21-20
Why Tennis?
Because the experience delivered by a master of the written word when describing a deeply loved anything, will bathe you in a flow of truth.
Even if you have never played, or even seen a tennis match, this ride is well worth the price of a ticket.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darren Sapp
- 11-01-19
This Guy Can Write
I had never heard of this author before and found while looking for a book on tennis. This is a collection of articles he wrote. Each stands on their own but all are worth a read. This guy was a master at prose.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anna Bell
- 06-06-19
Anna
If there wasn’t music well past the introduction and into the actual story, I’d give a better review. The music is extremely annoying.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- asdasklda
- 02-08-19
not really on tennis at all
The first chapter is primarily a tedious description of weather conditions in the author’s hometown and, tangentially, how the wind there on occasion affected his tennis game. The second chapter is an even more tedious “take-down” of a Tracy Austin autobiography, an essay that was probably once thought to be “brutal” and to deliver a real comeuppance, but that now is boring and trite. The third chapter is an interminable description mostly of qualifying play at a Montreal tournament in the mid-90s, marred by cheap shots at Andre Agassi of all people, and long-winded descriptions of minutiae such as the available concessions, and of long forgotten low ranked players of that time. The fourth chapter, ah, forget it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C
- 12-01-17
Pro Tennis in a nutshell
I was recommended this collection by a journalist friend after they learned of my extensive competitive tennis history. This text is such a true summation of multiple facets of the professional and semi-pro game and all beautifully, colorfully, written. Read it and understand and appreciate this poetic game in a new way.