Shooting Pool: The People, the Passion, the Pulse of the Game

From Minnesota Fats to Fast Eddie, pool has always been associated with a fringe scene. Not anymore. More than 30 million Americans--men and women--play pool. EPSN covers the professional men's and women's billiards tour nightly, and the sales of pool tables has skyrocketed in the last five years.

Shooting Pool documents this hot sport, from the slick, exclusive, upscale rooms that are popping up all over the country to the magic of the fast-disappearing funky pool halls of yesterday, from the glamorous women's professional tour and its televised matches to the tavern leagues of northern California. Text by pool expert Mike Shamos and evocative black-and-white and color photographs by George Bennett highlight it all, as well as the current crop of top American players, the legendary older hustlers, and the places to play. They explore the life of the professional player and offer lessons on perfecting the game.

Mike Shamos is a computer scientist, attorney, and pool fancier. In 1983 he formed The Billiard Archive, a nonprofit historical foundation organized to preserve the history of pool, billiards, and snooker. A contributing editor of Billiards Digest magazine, he writes a regular column on billiard history and has authored two previous books: Pool and The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards.

George Bennett's photographs have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Time, and many other publications. His books include Mannequins, Fighters (with text by Pete Hamill), and Inside Track: A Photo Documentary of NASCAR Stock Car Racing (with text by Benny Parsons). He lives in New York City.