{"product_id":"the-circuit-9781250234926","title":"The Circuit","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2019 PEN\/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Circuit\u003c\/i\u003e is the best sports book I've read in years, maybe ever.\" --Rich Cohen, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Chicago Cubs\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMonsters\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"As sports writing goes, \u003ci\u003eThe Circuit \u003c\/i\u003eis unusual in the very best way. Rowan Ricardo Phillips writes with such fluidity, and packs the book with bursts of brilliance. This is a compulsively readable guide to one truly Homeric year of professional tennis.\" --John Green, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Fault in Our Stars\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn energetic, lyrical, genre-defying account of the 2017 tennis season. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey\u003c\/i\u003e, the award-winning poet--and \u003ci\u003eParis Review\u003c\/i\u003e sports columnist--Rowan Ricardo Phillips chronicles 2017 as seen through the unique prism of its pivotal, revelatory, and historic tennis season. The annual tennis schedule is a rarity in professional sports in that it encapsulates the calendar year. And like the year, it's divided into four seasons, each marked by a final tournament: the Grand Slams. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Phillips charts the year from winter's Australian Open, where Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal renewed their rivalry in a match for the ages, to fall's U.S. Open. Along the way, Phillips paints a new, vibrant portrait of tennis, one that captures not only the emotions, nerves, and ruthless tactics of the point-by-point game but also the quicksilver movement of victory and defeat on the tour, placing that sense of upheaval within a broader cultural and social context. Tennis has long been thought of as an escapist spectacle: a bucolic, separate bauble of life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Circuit\u003c\/i\u003e will convince you that you don't leave the world behind as you watch tennis--you bring it with you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRowan Ricardo Phillips\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eHeaven \u003c\/i\u003e(FSG, 2015) and \u003ci\u003eThe Ground \u003c\/i\u003e(FSG, 2012). He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, the PEN\/Joyce Osterweil Award, and the GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry, and of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in New York City.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Picador Paper","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50899834503442,"sku":"9781250234926","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_34e28260-0915-4940-a81a-5263c4c25a38.jpg?v=1738366846","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-circuit-9781250234926","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}