{"product_id":"9781628921380","title":"Golf Ball","description":"\u003cstrong\u003eGolf Ball\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor(s): Harry Brown\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarry Brown explores the composition, history, kinetic life, and the  long deterioration of golf balls, which as it turns out may outlive their hitters by a  thousand years, in places far beyond our reach. Golf balls embody our efforts  to impose our will on the land, whether the local golf course or the  Moon, but their unpredictable spin, bounce, and roll often defy our  control. Despite their considerable technical refinements, golf balls  reveal the futility of control. They inevitably disappear in plain sight  and find their way into hazards. Golf balls play with people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHarry Brown's short treatise on the golf ball serves up surprising lessons about the human desire to tame and control the landscape through technology.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eObject Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReview(s):\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eGolf Ball \u003c\/i\u003eis a funny, smart, and charming meditation on an unlikely subject.  Who knew that the story of this humble little white sphere could tell us so much about our history and culture?  Brown weaves cultural history, literary criticism, physics, and philosophy into this wonderful book.  His meditation on the golf ball deserves a place on the reading list of the curious golfer and cultural critic alike.\" —\u003ci\u003eOrin Starn, Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University, USA, and author of The Passion of Tiger Woods\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Brown starts where the curious amongst us always seem to-by taking things apart. Departing from the physical dissection of a single ball, performed as a boy, Brown rollicks through a detailed and highly entertaining exploration of the history of the game of golf. Golf Ball will fill the air of the 19th Hole with questions answered and stories told.\" —\u003ci\u003eTom Chiarella, Visiting Writer, Esquire Magazine, and Award-Winning Member of the Golf Writers Association of America\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Object Lessons series achieves something very close to magic: the books take ordinary—even banal—objects and animate them with a rich history of invention, political struggle, science, and popular mythology. Filled with fascinating details and conveyed in sharp, accessible prose, the books make the everyday world come to life. Be warned: once you've read a few of these, you'll start walking around your house, picking up random objects, and musing aloud: 'I wonder what the story is behind this thing?'\"—\u003ci\u003eSteven Johnson, best-selling author of How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Object Lessons project, edited by game theory legend Ian Bogost and cultural studies academic Christopher Schaberg, commissions short essays and small, beautiful books about everyday objects from shipping containers to toast. \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e hosts a collection of \"mini object-lessons\", brief essays that take a deeper look at things we generally only glance upon ('Is bread toast only insofar as a human toaster perceives it to be \"done?\" Is bread toast when it reaches some specific level of nonenzymatic browning?'). More substantive is Bloomsbury's collection of small, gorgeously designed books that delve into their subjects in much more depth.\" \u003ci\u003e—Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eISBN:  9781628921380\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ","brand":"Bloomsbury Academic","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback","offer_id":40595727188174,"sku":"9781628921380","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/7029\/7806\/products\/getimage_c90ed13f-3777-47aa-b918-de6eeb5fd2a2.jpg?v=1637840085","url":"https:\/\/pickwickbookshop.com\/products\/9781628921380","provider":"Pickwick Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}