On Snooker A Brilliant Exploration of the Game and the Characters Who Play It

5 million viewers stayed up past midnight to watch). On the way we meet the great players - the central figure of the book is Stephen Hendry, probably the most talented snooker player ever - and snooker's bad boy champions. On Snooker is a brilliant, witty and compact look at the game of snooker - past and present - from a masterful storyteller. (6 1/4 x 9 1/4, 214 pages)On Snooker is a brilliant, witty, & compact look at the game of snooker--past & present--by one of the world's great novelists. It takes a close look at the odd origins of the game, born the illegitimate child of billiards on a British Indian Army base in the nineteenth century & in 1985 attracting 18.5 million television viewers who stayed up past midnight to watch the World Championship at the Crucible in Sheffield, England. The central figure of the book is Stephen Hendry, probably the most talented snooker player ever, who recently sought a record-breaking eighth world title. But On Snooker also explores the game's other fascinating characters, from Alex Higgins, Cliff Thorburn (a Canadian & the first non-Brit to win the title), Kirk Stevens, & Jimmy White to Ronnie O'Sullivan. Young O'Sullivan, perhaps the game's most gifted natural talent, is a troubled man; his father, a former porn dealer ("Ron's the name, porn's the game") is serving a life sentence for murder. In addition, Richler visits the craftsman who makes cues for the champions & interviews the agents & groupies who follow the players on the circuit. The fascinating world of snooker has never been explored with such pith & perception. Like Joyce Carol Oates's book on boxing, On Snooker is a book all lovers of sport & superb sports writing will cherish."Richler's aim is still deadly."--The New York TimesThe award-winning novelist¿a self-confessed former "teenage poolroom hustler"¿brings the enormously popular game of British snooker and its players colorfully to life."On Snooker" is a brilliant, witty, and compact look at the game of snooker -- past and present -- by one of the world's great novelists. It takes a close look at the odd origins of the game, born the illegitimate child of billiards on a British Indian Army base in the nineteenth century and in 1985 attracting 18.5 million television viewers who stayed up past midnight to watch the World Championship at the Crucible in Sheffield, England.PThe central figure of the book is Stephen Hendry, probably the most talented snooker player ever, who recently sought a record-breaking eighth world title. But "On Snooker" also explores the game's other fascinating characters, from Alex Higgins, Cliff Thorburn (a Canadian and the first nonBrit to win the title), Kirk Stevens, and Jimmy White to Ronnie O'Sullivan. Young O'Sullivan, perhaps the game's most gifted natural talent, is a troubled man; his father, a former porn dealer ("Ron's the name, porn's the game") is serving a life sentence for murder. In addition, Richler visits the craftsman who makes cues for the champions and interviews the agents and groupies who follow the players on the circuit.PThe fascinating world of snooker has never been explored with such pith and perception. Like Joyce Carol Oates's book on boxing, "On Snooker" is a book all lovers of sport and superb sports writing will cherish.Long before he became a writer, Mordecai Richler fell in love with snooker, risking God's wrath by spending Friday evenings at the Laurier pool hall and concluding that "snooker was a hell of a lot more fun than Talmud classes with Mr. Yalofsky in a back room of the Young Israel Synagogue." In this homage to the snooker subculture --Richler's last book--he looks at his own passion for the game as well as that of the hustlers, prodigies, and others who devote their lives to it. Richler fills out his observations with historic morsels (for instance, the fact that Pushkin, Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Conrad, and Dostoyevsky all managed to squeeze at least a mention of billiards into their work). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)