Preferred Lies [Paperback]

Andrew Greig (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2007

Surely golf is a game for posh people, country clubs and networking businessmen, for unfortunate sweaters, politics and trousers? Andrew Greig grew up on the East coast of Scotland, where playing golf is as natural as breathing. He sees the game as the great leveller, and has played on the Old course at St Andrews as well as on the miners' courses of Yorkshire. He writes about the different cultural manifestations of the game, the history, the geography, the different social meanings, as well as the subjective experience, the reflections between shots. He plays alone, with friends and brothers, with ghosts. He is looking for the essence of golf, the pure heart of it, which can be found, Andrew Greig believes, on the free 9 hole course on North Ronaldsay.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Greig's purely struck prose is not the only strength of this book. For one thing he has excellent taste in golf courses.' -- Lawrence Donegan THE GUARDIAN 'one you should look out for is novelist Andrew Greig's PREFERRED LIES. To describe it as a tour of the Scottish golf courses is to do it a grave disservice, as it is really a book of 'life thinking.' -- Giles Foden CONDE NAST TRAVELLER 'If you have, or ever have had, any interest in golf, buy this book and read it. Buy it for your loved one, your lost one, the Saturday morning medal deserter ... They and you will love it, inhabit it, and possibly be transformed by it. It's the best book about golf I've ever read.' -- Tom Moreton SUNDAY HERALD PREFERRED LIES is satisfying, demanding, allusive and provocative. I finished it not merely wishing I was as good at golf as Greig, but also as good at learning from it.' -- Rick Gekoski SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY Greig..., has crafted a wonderful book about how it feels to be alive, in which the game of golf is a conduit for sensation. Here, golf isn't a metaphor for life - it is life. Sculpted in luminous prose, which echoes his work as one of Scotland's leading poets and novelists, this is a beautiful, affecting piece of work.' -- Mike Aitken THE SCOTSMAN a wonderful and wise book, quite unlike any golfing book you will have ever read before. -- Dermot Bolger THE IRISH TIMES 'Thought-provoking and moving.' -- Doug Johnstone THE LIST 'PREFERRED LIES feels like quite a special book.' -- Tom Cox THE INDEPENDENT 'Greig writes engagingly. His observations are sharp, sometimes zany.' -- Michael Lister THE TLS 'he does have an ear for the way people talk and express themselves on and off the course.' -- Ian Dunlop THE SPECTATOR 'a triumph... his beautiful prose and wry observations will keep you reading into the night.' GOLF PUNK 'The pleasure of this book is no doubt down to the fact that the author is an accomplished writer' GOLF INTERNATIONAL 'If you are looking for a seriously fine piece of writing and have a rudimentary understanding of a game which involves using a stick to hit a little white ball into a hole several hundred yards away, then PREFERRED LIES is worth reading.' -- Brackley Sumner TRIBUNE --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Andrew Greig was born in Bannockburn in Scotland. He is the author of six acclaimed books of poetry and five novels.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix; New Ed edition (April 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753821567
• ISBN-13: 978-0753821565
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.9 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,058,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars spiritual view of golf - it's not about the score, September 14, 2006

By 

Charles Parkes "Monaco Parkes" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Preferred Lies (Hardcover)

We went to Gleneagles this year for 10 days holiday staying in a house on the estate which we rented. Lots of emotion driving through Milnathort passing a house of oldest friend and remembering aged 10 playing golf at Milnathort and not finding the ball because the course was covered in white feathers. One day I indulged myself and drove to Dollar, where I had been to school and lived during my formative years, arriving at 08.00am and played a round of golf on my own. I am a very poor player who has never yet broken 100 (the swing mistakes of my youth will stay and haunt me all my life)and so was amazed to go round the course in 82 - more than uncanny. Stopping at the 18th green for 10 minutes to look at the house where I grew up which backed onto the golf course I could see me and my brother playing in the garden and remembered where we had the rabbit hutch and so on and so on. It was very nostalgic and very pleasant. Dollar unchanged etc

Next day we drive 'en famille' to Edinburgh and turn on the radio at 08.45am and pick up a 15 minute reading from a book just come out called 'Preferred Lies' by Andrew Greig (or Grieg). It's autobiographical about a guy who on his (very) sick bed hear's voices from his deceased father telling him to pick up his golf clubs after years of absence as the road to recovery. So he sets off on a tour of golf courses in Scotland which had been meaningful to him and gives us his philosophy on the way (It's not about the score). That day my wife managed to find the book in a book shop and bought it for me for my birthday and... surprise is the last chapter is entitled Dollar. Imagine my surprise - all the golf courses in Scotland and he chooses to end his book playing alone at Dollar in the way I had done just two days earlier. Turns out he had attended Dollar Academy as I had many years ago. So you must please buy the book. It is golfy but you will enjoy it. As this book, golf in Scotland follows the natural lie of the land and is not man made. It is earthy and genuine.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Golf Not For Everyone, November 25, 2006

By 

Carl E. Johnson Jr. "cejjpj" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preferred Lies (Hardcover)

Andrew Greig, a Scot, is a poet, a nonfiction writer and a novelist who, as a junior, was a golf champion in Fife. This book combines all that and more. At one point the author states that he's not sure whether he's writing for the golfer or nongolfer. Having read it, I'm not sure either, but I'm a golfer with some familiarity with Scottish golf courses, including a number of those that Greig visits during his journey rediscovering golf and himself, without which background I'm uncertain whether I would have finished the book. Now, having finished it, I expect to be reading it again.

You want beautiful writing? You've got it here. You want "new age" golf? You've got it here. You want a little humor? Same answer. The story line, such as it is, has the author visiting 18 or so famous, not-so-well-known (to Americans such as I) and barely golf courses around Scotland after a 35-year absence from the game and just upon recovery from a life-threatening illness. Although here and there we get some tidbits about the golf courses themselves, the point of the book is "golf and life" -- specifically, Mr. Greig's life.

On the golf side, I think of Scots as social, match play players. Mr. Greig doesn't fit that image. He prefers to play alone, and therefore for him it's medal play against the course and himself. In spite of his long absence from the game, he still cares about the score. He concludes his final round, at Dollar, alone: "My card records 35 out, 37 in. Total 72, six over par. Not that I was counting. Of course I'm counting. There is still something at stake. There aye will be." Pretty heavy stuff, yes?

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Essence, June 20, 2007

By 

Joan M. Shafer (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preferred Lies (Hardcover)

"Preferred Lies", like a once-in-a-lifetime round of golf on a special golf course, is something one savors as you move through it. Andrew's wit, insight, depth, humor, and choice of words delight the reader with their imagination and intention. It is an honest book - and therefore one that was easy to relate to and come away with impressions and thoughts that shall last. This is a work of art that comes not only from Andrew's creative and entertaining spirit, but from his heart. That is the highest recommendation that I think one can give for any endeavor.