One billion Chinese pong fans can’t be wrong. With an all-star team of contributing writers—including Nick Hornby, Will Shortz, Davy Rothbart, Harold Evans, and Jonathan Safran Foer—and quirky, fascinating images of table tennis from around the world, editors Eli Horowitz (McSweeny’s) and Roger Bennet (creator of Bar Mitzvah Disco and Camp Camp) deliver a humorous but heartfelt paean to ping pong, the world's most popular, yet least appreciated sport. Everything You Know Is Pong is a beautifully designed literary tribute to every aspect of table tennis, the true global pastime.
Combining the insight of Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World and the intrigue of Ben Affleck’s Argo, Ping Pong Diplomacy traces the story of how an aristocratic British spy used the game of table tennis to propel a Communist strategy that changed the shape of the world. THE SPRING OF 1971 heralded the greatest geopolitical realignment in a generation. After twenty-two years of antagonism, China and the United States suddenly moved toward a détente—achieved not by politicians but by Ping-Pong players. The Western press delighted in the absurdity of the moment and branded it “Ping-Pong Diplomacy.” But for the Chinese, Ping-Pong was always political, a strategic cog in Mao Zedong’s foreign policy. Nicholas Griffin proves that the organized game, from its first breath, was tied to Communism thanks to its founder, Ivor Montagu, son of a wealthy English baron and spy for the Soviet Union. Ping-Pong Diplomacy traces a crucial intersection of sports and society. Griffin tells the strange and tragic story of how the game was manipulated at the highest levels; how the Chinese government helped cover up the death of 36 million peasants by holding the World Table Tennis Championships during the Great Famine; how championship players were driven to their deaths during the Cultural Revolution; and, finally, how the survivors were reconvened in 1971 and ordered to reach out to their American counterparts. Through a cast of eccentric characters, from spies to hippies and Ping-Pong-obsessed generals to atom-bomb survivors, Griffin explores how a neglected sport was used to help realign the balance of worldwide power.
Ping and Pong are a pair of penguins who love to do new things. But whatever Ping tries to do, Pong can do it better - Ping can squeak in French, Pong can squeak in nine different languages, Ping can catch a fish, Pong can catch a shark... Is there anything that Ping can do better? Find out in this hilarious story of friendship.
When a mortifying defeat to his teenage son rekindles his lifelong passion for table tennis, keen philosopher Guido Mina di Sospiro sets out to learn the game properly. Guido’s love for spinning a feather-weight ball takes him from his local Ping-Pong club, populated by idiosyncratic players with extraordinary stories to tell, to training drills with a world-class coach. This seemingly harmless game also leads him into sticky situations in the CIA headquarters and the ganglands of Washington, D.C. Woven throughout his Ping-Pong epiphany are philosophical ruminations on Plato and Aristotle, metaphysicians and empiricists, Jung’s dark shadow, Sun Tzu’s war tactics, the I Ching, and much more. As Guido’s journey takes him from Big Sur to a nail-biting showdown in China against a string of elite players, he finds that Ping-Pong can teach us a surprising amount about life.
The animals of Apple Tree Farm just don't know what to do with Ping Pong Pig. He's far too busy learning to fly to help with any of the farmyard chores, and he keeps making such a mess! Then they have an idea - they make Ping Pong a trampoline! Surely now there will be no more trouble from Ping Pong - will there?
This book is called Ping Pong for Fighters, and it's about fighting all the different elements that are attached to table tennis. The fight starts inward and eventually moves outward, from within ourselves, to the ball, to our opponents, to the environment and the external conditions. I think what's interesting about this book is that the reader takes the journey with me. All that I learned in over 20 years of competing in table tennis, is in this book. The goal of this book is to try and get the reader to approach the game differently. The book is basically a philosophy for the thinking and feeling player. A philosophy that encourages one to stay in the present moment, have self confidence and compete to the best of their ability. This book is also very direct and very easy to understand. It is not an intellectual discourse of any kind. The book reads more like a conversation consisting of helpful direction through experience and a philosophy of table tennis that is concerned more with experiencing what it feels like to think and play table tennis like a top table tennis player.
Makoto “Smile” Tsukimoto and his friend Yutaka “Peco” Hoshino have been playing table tennis since they were kids, but as they enter high school, they find that the game has changed. Seeing potential in them that they themselves don’t fully realize, the coach recruits them for the school team. Bringing out their best will mean challenging the top players from rival schools in the summer tournament, including an ace Chinese exchange student who almost made the Olympic team. With the pressure on, can Smile and Peco take the heat and make it into the finals? -- VIZ Media
