Pool Books

9Ball_JJ

9Ball_JJ

Newbie Fo' Life
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Ok everyone, I need your help. My friend has been asking for some good pool books. Not so much instructional, but more stories about going on the road and so on. I lent him my copy of "Playing off the rail," and he liked it a lot. His birthday is coming up and I'd like to get him a few books if possible. Any suggestions on what books to go with?? The only other book that I could think of was "The green felt jungle." TIA.
 
9Ball_JJ said:
Ok everyone, I need your help. My friend has been asking for some good pool books. Not so much instructional, but more stories about going on the road and so on. I lent him my copy of "Playing off the rail," and he liked it a lot. His birthday is coming up and I'd like to get him a few books if possible. Any suggestions on what books to go with?? The only other book that I could think of was "The green felt jungle." TIA.
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"McGoorty" is what I would recommend, although "The Green Felt Jungle" would also be a good gift.

Mike
 
McGorty is great. I like R.A. Dyer's Hustler Days, Tevis' The Hustler and Color of Money.

Some of the autobiographies are ok, Fat's book is funny, Mosconi's is good, but a little slow.


FWIW,

Jim
 
9Ball_JJ said:
Ok everyone, I need your help. My friend has been asking for some good pool books. Not so much instructional, but more stories about going on the road and so on. I lent him my copy of "Playing off the rail," and he liked it a lot. His birthday is coming up and I'd like to get him a few books if possible. Any suggestions on what books to go with?? The only other book that I could think of was "The green felt jungle." TIA.
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ROAD PLAYER: The Danny Diliberto Story
http://www.bebobpublishing.com/newstuff.htm

This is a fantastic read, I can't say enough good things about it.
 
Hustler Days

R.A. Dyer's book, Hustler Days, is an amazingly well-researched tome. The stories and characterizations are authentic. In truth, I bought the book looking to find fault and knock it. How this guy, a writer, could have landed on so many realistic portrayals without actually being there or knowing the players personally, I'll never figure out. Well done, Mr. Dyer, I'm dying to meet you.

the Beard
Bank on, brother! Old school pool.
 
If you're looking for good stories and such, the books above are very entertaining reads. I would especially recommend Grady's book and "the Green Felt Jungle" for good road stories. Another that hasn't been mentioned is "Cornbread Red", which I also thought was very entertaining.
 
Freddie didnt even mention his own book, Banking with the Beard, which is a fantastic instructional book and has alot of very interesting pool stories.

Another one along the same vein is the two Eddie Robins one pocket books. They have some tremendously entertaining road stories.

I have Danny's book on CD Rom. Anyone know if this book been published to print yet? The link listed in this thread is unclear as to the type of publication.
 
It looked to me that a hardcopy version of DiLibertos' book will be available after january 5. I wonder if Danny will be at the DCC this year; his family got hit hard by Katrina in Florida. It would be nice if he could autograph some copies.


Other books you might like:

Buddy Hall Rags to Rifleman- hard to find, expensive (up to $300+ on ebay), but a very good book about a legends life.

Robert Byrnes Wonderful World of Pool and Billiards. Has some stories at the end as well as instructonal material. His McGoorty book is a must have but this book is interesting and you can usually find cheap used copies of Byrnes' stuff. His Great Pool Stories book is more about pool in literature and not quite as engaging.

I haven't had a chance to read any of the snooker legends books (Higgins, White) but Mordechai Richlers On Snooker has some interesting stuff in it. For example, Ronnie O'Sullivans' dad used to own 20 porno shops before being sentenced to life in prison for murder. Alex Higgins went so broke a fan watched him topping off his beer glass with abondoned beers from other tables at a pub....weird stuff.

Look on ebay.com and at Amazon.com. You can probably get copies of the Byrne books for around 5-6 bucks used.

The Buy-it-now price for Buddy Halls' book was $175 the last time I looked, though.
 
Road Player

Danny Diliberto and I will gladly sign copies of "Road Player, The Danny Diliberto Story" at Derby City. The book will be available at Bob Henning's booth (BeBob Publishing).

-Jerry
 
I kept hearing people talk about The Inner Game of Tennis. I'm currently reading it and it applies to pool and life in general.
 
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Hal said:
I kept hearing people talk about The Inner Game of Tennis. I'm currently reading it and it applies to pool and life in general.
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I read that a few times when working on becoming a Golf Pro. I gave up on that. I got sick of teaching golf and selling sweaters to old people. I never got enough playing time to ever get any good. However, the book rules and yes it is great for any sports that requires concentration and repetitiveness.
 
How's Danny D. doing, Jerry? Heard he got hammered by the hurricane but no word since. Hope his family got through it ok.


** I also wanted to bump this thread back up so people can see that he's selling his book at DCC and will sign copies.
 
The Billiards Encyclopedia by Michael Shamos is an excellent book for any pool player imo.

Dave
 
I just finished going through 43 pages (430 titles) at a book website looking for exactly what you described. Great site, it gives you price comparisons between Amazon, HalfPrice Books, etc. The site is WWW.cheapestbookprice.com, enter billiards in the search box; if you don't want to go through the whole thing (like I did), just go to pages 2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,15,17,24,36,42 for the non-tech stuff. One example of why this site is useful: The History of Billiards listed at $300+ at one store and $900+ at another store, new condition at both places. The bad news: no Robin books, no Buddy Hall bio and no Grady book. Hope this helps.
 
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