Everything You Know Is Pong: How Mighty Table Tennis Shapes Our World

A highly illustrated, beautifully designed tribute to ping pong, the world's most popular yet least appreciated sport—with tales from the table by Nick Hornby, Will Shortz, Davy Rothbart, Harold Evans, Jonathan Safran Foer, and others.

Every sport claims to be the world's game—soccer, basketball, kabaddi. But none can match the global status acquired by modest, ubiquitous ping pong—the most popular yet misunderstood pastime in the world today, a sleeping giant of fast-paced fun. Join us on a journey into the dark corners and distant alleys of this ponging globe, from suburban basements of misspent youths to Bangkok backrooms to New Jersey rec rooms to Beijing stadia to dwarf child champions to elderly enthusiasts to Hollywood hipsters to perky porn stars. This cast of thousands, combined with artifacts from the authors' ever-growing collection of ping pongalia, reveals the hidden truths of the world behind the game: the secrets of eternal youth, guerrilla warfare, foolproof seduction, fame and adulation—all explained through two paddles, sixty inches of net, and a bouncing, bouncing ball. A world where everything you know is pong.

*Please note: some images contained in this book are of an adult nature.

Roger Bennett is the founder and CEO of the Men in Blazers Media Network, which is the single big­gest dedicated soccer platform in the United States. Cov­ering every facet of the global game―men’s and women’s, club and international―the network boasts a multitude of hosts engaging a diverse, young American audience who have fallen in love with the game and the culture that sur­rounds it. Bennett is also the author of Re(Born) in the USA: An Englishman’s Love Letter to His Chosen Home, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

ELI HOROWITZ was the managing editor and then publisher of McSweeney's for eight years. He is the coauthor of The Clock Without a Face, a treasure-hunt mystery; Everything You Know Is Pong, an illustrated cultural history of Ping-Pong; and The New World, a collaboration with Chris Adrian. He was born in Virginia and lives in San Francisco.