Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Haiku and Other Whimsical Observations to Help You Understand the Modern Game [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Gregg Easterbrook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2001

Based on the increasingly popular weekly football commentary on the e-zine Slate, Tuesday Morning Quarterback showcases the esoteric humor that has made Gregg Easterbrook's column a hit with sports fans on the Internet. By using Zen poetry, Newtonian physics, historical allusions, and other conceits, Easterbrook creates a fresh, ironic commentary to the philosophy of the game. Including mostly original material as well as a handful of classic TMQ commentary from his column, this book, in the wry humorous tradition of Golf in the Kingdom, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, and O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto, is an intriguingly oddball yet right-on-the-money examination of football and its culture.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Titled after his thoughtful Slate column, Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Haiku and Whimsical Observations to Help You Understand the Modern Game presses sportswriter Gregg Easterbrook's commentary into metrical service. His one rule: "literary merit optional." How else to explain gems like "Ideally, don't play./ Fans wince when I trot on field./ I am the Punter." Indeed. Yet Easterbrook has the lefty egghead sportsnut market locked up in addition to his Slate duties, he's a contributing editor at the Atlantic Monthly, and a senior editor at the New Republic. He's also the author of what the press chat calls "the landmark eco-realist book," A Moment on the Earth: The Coming of Age of Environmental Optimism. This little square book (5 1/2" 6 1/4") includes 40 b&w illustrations, mostly of old-style gridiron action.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"favorite stocking-stuffer this year" -- The Washington Post, December 11, 2001

TMQ is a wonderful book, full of blistering insights and graceful haiku... small in ambition, yet glorious in success. -- National Review, October 13, 2001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Universe; illustrated edition edition (September 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789306514
• ISBN-13: 978-0789306517
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 5.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,053,892 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Buffalo, New York, to parents who were naturalized Canadians. I'm a graduate of Colorado College and a lover of the Rocky Mountains region throughout North America. Because my wife was until recently as U.S. foreign service officer, I've lived in countries including Pakistan and Belgium. I wish there was still a little family-owned patisserie in walking distance from my house like there was in Brussels. My character flaw is that I watch too much football.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Really short, 1/10 as good as the columns from Slate, October 4, 2001

By 

Colin R. Glassey (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Haiku and Other Whimsical Observations to Help You Understand the Modern Game (Hardcover)

This book turns out to be really tiny with postcard sized pages, thick paper, wide margins, and lots of full-page, old-fashioned photos of football players I didn't recognize.

I think Gregg Easterbrook's weekly columns on Slate.com are great. Some of the best commentary on football I've ever read (and I've been watching and reading about football for more than 30 years, though only as a fan). However, this book is really more of a "joke" than it is a real book. I read it in less than 30 minutes. It contained nothing that I didn't already know as a result of reading his columns.

A collection of his columns with weekly scores and some additional information about last season might have been a useful book (that's kind of what I thought I would be getting). I don't really understand what Mr. Easterbook thought this book was about. Football poetry? Three or four general observations on football put together in a easy to read format?

Bottom line: not worth my money. I would never have bought this if I'd seen it in a bookstore as opposed to "online". One of the down-sides about buying online :-(

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars great book for newcomers, not so great for loyalists, December 30, 2002

By 

A+ in discrete stochastic processes (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Haiku and Other Whimsical Observations to Help You Understand the Modern Game (Hardcover)

This is a great little book if you've never read a greg easterbrook column. It's a good book if you've read one column and enjoyed it. It's pretty dull if you are a loyal reader of his columns. Easterbrook has a few key ideas. (Stop me before I blitz again; no, that's not a *double* reverse; coach + parka = loss; cheerleaders are hot, etc.) Each tuesday it's fun to see how they are apply to the previous weekend's games, but here, the book seems like just a poor rehash of his columns. Even some of the Haiku has been in his columns already.

If you've never read Easterbrook, buy the book, then read his columns (now on ESPN Page 2). If you are an Easterbrook loyalist, don't buy the book for yourself, but maybe give it someone else (after flipping through to read the Haiku).

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Gregg Easterbrook could have put together a much better book, June 25, 2003

By 

DCpostdoc "DCpostdoc" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Haiku and Other Whimsical Observations to Help You Understand the Modern Game (Hardcover)

I am a pretty avid fan of Gregg Easterbrook's writing for Slate and now ESPN. I bought this book expecting it to be of the same quality as the columns. Quite honestly, I would have settled for simply the material given in the columns with no improvement. Instead this book takes same material that is so interesting in the columns (the importance of fake kicks, proper sideline attire for cold weather, unusual college mascots) and presents them so quickly that they lose both their humor and informativeness. Part of the problem is that Easterbrook's observations seem much keener in the column, applied to last weekend's games, but I think Easterbrook still could have written a much better book, and I hope he does.