Reading Aloud

 My family is a tennis family.  Both my mother and my aunt were active tennis players in their youth, and even had success as winners of local tournaments.  Once my father and uncle joined the family, they also played tennis with their wives.  My aunt and uncle pursued this interest a bit longer and more actively than my mother and father did and made names for themselves in the tennis community around Dayton, Ohio back in the day.  Eventually, they turned their attention more to the golf course and played less tennis, but my aunt always enjoyed watching tennis on TV even when she no longer played.

When I learned that tennis legend Jimmy Connors had a written a new memoir, The Outsider,  it occurred to me that my aunt might enjoy the book.  At the time I learned of the book, my cousin was going to be coming to stay with me during my post-surgery convalescence, and I thought it might be fun for her and I to read the book aloud and record it, and then share that with my aunt. It would be sort of like the 3 of us would be reading it together.  It would give Cousin and I something to do with all my down-time, and something that we could all share.

As it turned out, my cousin wasn't able to come, but I decided to read the book aloud myself.  My goal was to read a chapter a day, and I managed to keep up with that schedule for the most part.  I read each chapter into a digital recorder and then emailed it to my cousins in New Hampshire, who then played each installment for my aunt.

I finally finished the book a few days ago.  It had 24 chapters.  I enjoyed the reading process because I knew my aunt was enjoying listening, and I generally enjoy reading aloud.   Jimmy's very large ego certainly comes through loud and clear in his writing.  The technical aspect of the book bothered me a bit as an English teacher because the first person narration flipped back and forth between present and past tense frequently for no apparent reason.  At various times I found myself wondering if anyone had actually edited the writing beyond checking spelling.  Even the basic printing was annoying as there were places where the periods at the ends of paragraphs were missing.  The book was also very heavy in statistics of various matches.  While some of that is necessary, there was a bit much of it for my taste.

Overall, I'm glad I did the reading project.  My reading certainly wouldn't win any awards because I didn't edit out my mis-reads and redos, nor my sneezes!  :)   But if my aunt enjoyed it, then that is my reward!

If you love the tennis era of the 1970s, then you might enjoy this book, but just prepare to be annoyed by some of its idiosyncrasies.

:)Amy