With October being national book month in the U.S.—though as a one-time listener of WMMR in Philly, I 'll never think of it as anything other than Rock-tober (you know, the month that rocks)—Kamakshi Tandon, the editor of TENNIS.com, and I are going to spend a week talking about one of the great tennis books, Too Soon to Panic, by Gordon Forbes.
This is Forbes' 1996 follow-up to his famous A Handful of Summers, and as I've been finding out over the last few days, it's very nearly as good. In Panic, Forbes, an ex-player from South Africa, wanders the tennis circuit in the early 1990s and looks back at his days on the amateur version of the tour in the 1950s and 60s. Of course, Kamakshi already knew this, as she read the book long before I had even heard of it.
We'll start posting on Monday, Oct. 2. If you want to check the book out, go here. Though Amazon lists just seven copies, so you may have to take our word on this one.
Next month, we're planning to read one that's a little easier to find: The Rivals, by Johnette Howard, about Chrissie and Martina.