Tennis Biography

You’re a disappointment to everyone. You’re a far cry from beautiful - and your thoughts are ugly too. You seem bound to fail, bound to break. But you know what it is to laugh with your best friend, to feel the first tentative tingles of attraction, to take exquisite pleasure in the affront of your unruly body. You just need to find your place. From dead pets and crashed cars to family traumas and misguided love affairs, Susannah Dickey's revitalising debut novel plunges us into the private world of one young woman as she navigates her rocky way to adulthood.

This phenomenally successful guide has become a touchstone for hundreds of thousands of people. Not just for tennis players, or even just for athletes in general, this handbook works for anybody who wants to improve their performance in any activity, from playing music to getting ahead at work.

In 1973 Jane Tennison, aged 22, leaves the Metropolitan Police Training Academy to be placed on probationary exercise in Hackney, where criminality thrives. We witness her struggle to cope in a male-dominated, chauvinistic environment, learning fast to deal with shocking situations with no help or sympathy from her superiors. Then comes her involvement in her first murder case. No one witnessed the savage beating of a tragic young girl who, the postmortem reveals, was pregnant when she died.

Chris Jackson's new thoughtful and brilliantly written study of Federer as a man, player and aesthetic and moral figure of our times outplays even Foster Wallace's magisterial writing on this greatest of all tennis champions. Updated for its audio release, here is the most profound, insightful and elegant book ever written about the greatest sportsman of our time.