Once upon a time, the publisher Harper Collins launched a series of books with titles starting with “I know absolutely nothing about…” If amazon is a trusted source of publishing information, not many titles were written before the concept was shifted to “Don’t know much about…” I am sure it is more palatable to prospective authors.
In any case, I have to confess that I Know Absolutely Nothing About Tennis: A Tennis Player’s Guide to the Sport’s History, Equipment, Apparel, Etiquette, Rules, and Language by Tracy Austin was an automatic purchase decision when I recently stumbled across it in a used book store. Some books, bring me joy simply from the title on the spine.
Paradoxically, I am not a big fan of the genre of series that includes (Subject)… For Dummies, or (Subject)… For Complete Idiots, or for that matter, this particular series. Some of the titles arguably shouldn’t exist. Does anyone think that Homeschooling for Dummies is a good idea? (That is a real book!)
As far as tennis books go, I Know Absolutely Nothing About Tennis is hard to categorize. It is loosely an instructional book wrapped up in a fictional story. At times, it reminded me of the cult classic book on continuous process improvement, The Goal, which uses the same narrative structure. (Let’s just accept the concept that there are cult classic books on project management and soldier on.)
The story is about “Stacy” who has moved to a new city with her husband who recently took a new job. Stacy is moping around the house and apparently unable to get out on her own. Because he is possibly a complete psycho, Stacy’s husband enters them in a mixed doubles tournament at his company. This distresses her all the more because… you guessed it, “I know absolutely nothing about tennis.”
The news of the impending tennis tournament prompts Stacy to finally get out of the house to take a drive. For the first time she notices that there is a tennis club in their neighborhood. It was a stroke of luck because this particular club was filled with a bunch of people with copious amounts of free time to instruct Stacy on the basic aspects of the sport.
As far as instructional material goes, I Know Absolutely Nothing About Tennis, is decent. This is a book that you place into the hands of a person who wants to become conversational about the sport. It is also appropriate for anyone that might be considering giving tennis a try. It does not teach beginning stroke technique, but rather a broad overview of the things that a player who is just getting started needs to know.
In the end, this is the tennis book equivalent of a Hallmark Christmas movie. However Stacy is falling in love with tennis rather than the handsome hometown hunk at the hardware store. It also illustrates how tennis is arguably one of the best social mechanisms to get a person connected with a community.
