Mastering Pool is a great book. Well and colorfully written, seems like you're getting a lesson from an old timer who took you under his wing. It has great advice and also has an 8 and 9 ball section. This is one of my favorite pool books.
I've been playing pool for over 50 years now, with my biggest accomplishment being playing a race to 125 against hall of fame whale Harry Platis for $16,000. I misjudged Harry's game a little bit and he got up to 121 points when he missed, while I was sitting on 52 and looking for a doctor because I felt like I was in a comatose! After he missed he started to take his cue apart expecting me to conceded the game, but I reminded him it was still my turn at the table, so he just sat down in his chair while I took a bathroom break. Once I came back, I ran 73 and out to win 125-122. That was January 1990, that was the last time I played for any money like that again. Years later in 2006 I played John Schmidt some $100 a game 14.1 before he went on and won the 2006 US Open 9B event that year, I didn't beat John, I hadn't played hardly at all in the 16 years since I'd quit playing, but it was fun playing against him, that was the first time I met JS, but have stayed in communication with him still to this day.
Slow cloth/big pockets. Sure made 14.1 a different game back then.
That's the Stevens 22oz Superweave cloth that Sumonis cloth sales started replacing in the market place in the mid 80's because the Mali company bought the Stevens Mill, and changed the weave of the cloth, then no one wanted to play on it anymore because the new Mali weave was to damn slow.