Each week we assemble a collection – a bouquet, if you will – of books you can read for yourself, or use to build into a display in your library. As always, the books we link to have info from Amazon.com. If you click a link and then buy anything at all from Amazon, we get a small percent of their profits from your sale. Yay!!! Thanks!!! We really appreciate the assistance! 💕😊

There is snow outside so let’s think about a summertime sport: tennis! Here are some books to help:

Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by James E. Ransome
“Six days a week they awoke before the sun came up to practice their serves and returns, to learn to run faster and hit harder. They were unstoppable. At age fourteen, Venus played her first professional match. Three years later, it was Serena’s turn. It wasn’t easy. Some tennis fans cheered for these two fresh faces, while those who were unhappy to see two black girls competing in a nearly all-white sport booed and taunted them. But they didn’t let it stop them.
With vibrant mixed media art, nonfiction superstars Lesa Cline-Ransome and Coretta Scott King Honor winner James E. Ransome share the inspirational story of two tennis legends who were fierce competitors on the courts, but close sisters above all.”

Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue, Natasha Wimmer (Translator)
“Sudden Death begins with a brutal tennis match that could decide the fate of the world. The bawdy Italian painter Caravaggio and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo battle it out before a crowd that includes Galileo, Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw Europe into the flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII behead Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into the most sought-after tennis balls of the time. Across the ocean in Mexico, the last Aztec emperors play their own games, as conquistador Hernán Cortés and his Mayan translator and lover, La Malinche, scheme and conquer, not knowing that their domestic comedy will change the world. And in a remote Mexican colony a bishop reads Thomas More’s Utopia and thinks that instead of a parody, it’s a manual.
In this mind-bending, prismatic novel, worlds collide, time coils, traditions break down.”

Days of Grace: A Memoir by Arthur Ashe
“DAYS OF GRACE is an inspiring memoir of a remarkable man who was the true embodiment of courage, elegance, and the spirit to fight: Arthur Ashe–tennis champion, social activist, and person with AIDS. Frank, revealing, touching–DAYS OF GRACE is the story of a man felled to soon. It remains as his legacy to us all.”

40 Love by Madeleine Wickham
“Everyone wins this game of literary tennis, a comedy of manners about envy in which Wickham skewers the nouveau riche. At their country estate, Patrick Chance and his wife host a weekend tennis party. As four couples gather on the sunny terrace, it seems obvious who among them is succeeding, and who is falling behind. But by the end of the party, nothing will be quite as certain. While the couples’ children amuse themselves with pony rides and rehearsals for a play, the adults suffer a series of personal revelations and crises. Wickham’s nonstop action reveals at every turn that matters may not be as they seem, and in the end one thing is crystal clear: the weekend is about anything but tennis.”

Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott
“Rosie Ferguson, a young woman, is obsessed with tournament tennis. Her mother is a recovering alcoholic still grieving the death of her first husband; her stepfather, a struggling writer, is wrestling with his own demons. And now Rosie finds that her athletic gifts, once a source of triumph and escape, place her in peril, as a shadowy man who stalks her from the bleachers seems to be developing an obsession of his own. Crooked Little Heart asks big questions in intimate ways: What keeps a family together? What are the small heartbreaks that tear at the fabric of our lives? What happens to grief when it goes underground? And what road must we walk with our flawed and crooked hearts?”

Pressure is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes by Billie Jean King, Christine Brennan
“Billie Jean King’s victory over Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” was a pivotal moment in gender relations for generations of American women and men. But her journey to the “Battle of the Sexes” was no accident. Now, for the first time ever, Billie Jean shares the life lessons that led to her success in that match, in sports, and in the world at large. Published in conjunction with the 35th anniversary of this monumental event, Pressure is a Privilege uses the Billie Jean King / Bobby Riggs match to illustrate what she learned in her early life that brought her to that event and the lessons that she learned from it. Packed with the common-sense lessons by which Billie Jean has lived her remarkable life, as well as words of wisdom and inspirational advice for how you can use these lessons, Pressure is a Privilege is an invaluable tool for any person in any profession who wants to achieve a richer, more fulfilling life.”