Category: The Confessions Series

Audiobook Review: Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player

Now available on CD is the audiobook of Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player!

Remember when you were young and emulated your sporting heroes in the streets or school playground and were going to win Gold at the Olympics, The 100m sprint? The World Cup?  Wimbledon? 

Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player is the must-go-to humorous guidebook about dreams, disappointments, failures and triumphs; a satirical mid-life-crisis handbook for everyone who has never quite fulfilled their fantasies on the tennis court, or anywhere else. 

The ‘Sporting Confessions’ series offers some rare insights and humour into what it is to be an athlete at the top of their game. Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player is the first book in a quartet of books which follow our hero, Lord Andy John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch through the Tennis Grand Slams around the world, in Melbourne, at Roland Garros in Paris, and finally, Lord Andy’s journey to immortality is told through the Fantastic Confabulations of an Ageing Tennis Player at Flushing Meadows in America. 

 ‘Forget Sports Personality of the Year, because ‘Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player’ wins my Sports Hero of the Decade! In a world where fame sometimes sleazily schmoozes with ability, Nick Owens’ salvos slyly obliterate the pretensions afflicting grand spectacle. Written with cheery lunacy, the rollercoaster of crazy is a joy and a credit to serving both a fine read and a smashing volley, earning a final score of everything-to-love.’ 
(Rick Hoegberg, writer)

Read by the one and only Samuel James, he says:

“The idea of an epic battle between the common man and the forces, trying to keep them at bay is always a winner with me. Nick’s brilliant balance between humour and tragedy had me cheering for Lord Andrew whilst at the same time wishing he could find someone, anyone, to just sit down with for a serious talk over a cup of tea …  Iparticularly enjoyed recreating a well known – and cringeworthy – interview with a certain political leader on the BBC!”

Kevin Coyne plays ‘Mad Boy’ for Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player

When Paul Warren, the Confessions illustrator and I first met, we soon realised we were both fans of the Derby born musician, Kevin Coyne. I had seen Kevin several times, and Paul was lucky enough to be one of his best friends and study with him at the Derby College of Art.

We both thought it would be terrific if Kevin’s role in our lives could be acknowledged in the Confessions… book and so were delighted when Helmi, Kevin’s wife, allowed us to use of Kevin’s song, Mad Boy, as the accompanying song for Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player. If you’re listening up there, Kevin, we hope we’ve done you proud.

Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player

Confessions of an Ageing Tennis Player

“I don’t like your attitude!” snaps “Serena Williams” as we square up over the club’s dubious grass courts. But I am “Andy Murray”, the greatest tennis GOAT ever, no really I am and you “Serena” are blocking me from my ultimate goal: chairman of our local club.

A riotously funny illustrated comic guidebook about obsession, ageing, sporting fantasy and the gap between imagination and reality.

Follow a man of a certain age — self-styled as “Andy Murray” — on his spirited, surreal journey through dreams of Wimbledon glory, club politics, and the absurdities of success that never quite arrives. The first in the Confessions series.

£19.99
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Maja Writes… Life During Wartime

Headphones are my best defence. Best decision ever. I listen to Hawking Teds all day. They sound like home: strange, clever, detached. Julian asked what I’m listening to. I said ‘white noise.’ It’s simpler. Eleanor told me, ‘Don’t let him near your lunchbox.’ Still don’t understand the metaphors in this place.

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player

“Tennis belongs to the individualistic past – a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.” (Jacques Barzun)

What happens after you believe you’ve won Wimbledon, conquered your local tennis club, and crowned yourself a sporting legend — when none of it was quite true?

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player picks up where Confessions left off: with Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch rescued from a burning raft of tennis rackets, arrested, and facing the small inconvenience of reality. Undeterred, our gloriously unreliable narrator sets his sights on an even greater prize — the Australian Open — while simultaneously navigating the far more dangerous terrain of love, obsession, correspondence, and self-delusion.

Told through a wildly inventive mix of match reports, fan mail, court transcripts, newspaper cuttings, ornithological “sightings,” and illustrated interludes, this is a novel that treats tennis as theatre, romance as combat, and ageing as an extreme sport. Along the way, real-world tennis mythology collides with fantasy, bureaucracy, and pataphysical logic, as Andy encounters rival “GOATs,” prison systems, phantom coaches, and women who may — or may not — be in love with him.

By turns absurd, tender, infuriating, and unexpectedly moving, The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player is a comic novel about the stories we tell ourselves to survive the fine line between confidence and delusion masculinity, ageing, and desire under pressure and the strange ways love refuses to follow the rules

Illustrated throughout by Paul Warren, this sequel deepens the world of Confessions while standing confidently on its own as a bold, original, laugh-out-loud meditation on ambition, attachment, and the enduring hope that the next match — or the next letter — might finally change everything.

Next stop: Melbourne. Love all.

 

£19.99
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Julian Writes… Maya and the Drop Shot!

She wears headphones. All day. I’m certain she’s listening to Serbian poetry or perhaps meditative tennis podcasts. I asked what music inspires her but she just shrugged, “It’s white noise.” This may be metaphorical. I think she’s protecting herself from the chaos of the publishing world. Later, she briefly smiled when I offered her a stapler. Progress.

I try later that morning and ask what she’s listening to. ‘Hawking Teds,’ she said, deadpan. I pretended to know.  I think she meant Hawkwind. Fascinating! A woman who misnames her band and owns it. There’s art in that. Like hitting a drop shot when everyone expects a drive. I’m certain she listens to ‘Once in a Lifetime’ and thinks of me.

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player

“Tennis belongs to the individualistic past – a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.” (Jacques Barzun)

What happens after you believe you’ve won Wimbledon, conquered your local tennis club, and crowned yourself a sporting legend — when none of it was quite true?

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player picks up where Confessions left off: with Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch rescued from a burning raft of tennis rackets, arrested, and facing the small inconvenience of reality. Undeterred, our gloriously unreliable narrator sets his sights on an even greater prize — the Australian Open — while simultaneously navigating the far more dangerous terrain of love, obsession, correspondence, and self-delusion.

Told through a wildly inventive mix of match reports, fan mail, court transcripts, newspaper cuttings, ornithological “sightings,” and illustrated interludes, this is a novel that treats tennis as theatre, romance as combat, and ageing as an extreme sport. Along the way, real-world tennis mythology collides with fantasy, bureaucracy, and pataphysical logic, as Andy encounters rival “GOATs,” prison systems, phantom coaches, and women who may — or may not — be in love with him.

By turns absurd, tender, infuriating, and unexpectedly moving, The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player is a comic novel about the stories we tell ourselves to survive the fine line between confidence and delusion masculinity, ageing, and desire under pressure and the strange ways love refuses to follow the rules

Illustrated throughout by Paul Warren, this sequel deepens the world of Confessions while standing confidently on its own as a bold, original, laugh-out-loud meditation on ambition, attachment, and the enduring hope that the next match — or the next letter — might finally change everything.

Next stop: Melbourne. Love all.

 

£19.99
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Maja Writes… The Road To Nowhere?

He asked if I like tennis. I said I don’t play. He looked disappointed. He looked like I’d called his god a liar. He smells like fresh paper. I started humming Psycho Filler. It helps drown him out. I do not tell him that Novak Djokovic is my mother’s cousin’s husband’s brother. It never ends well. That could be a Hawking Teds song title. He smells faintly of stationery. Work is boring involving mostly typing things into spreadsheets that make no sense. But at least I’m indoors.

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player

“Tennis belongs to the individualistic past – a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.” (Jacques Barzun)

What happens after you believe you’ve won Wimbledon, conquered your local tennis club, and crowned yourself a sporting legend — when none of it was quite true?

The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player picks up where Confessions left off: with Lord Andrew John Paul George Ringo Murray of Kirkintilloch rescued from a burning raft of tennis rackets, arrested, and facing the small inconvenience of reality. Undeterred, our gloriously unreliable narrator sets his sights on an even greater prize — the Australian Open — while simultaneously navigating the far more dangerous terrain of love, obsession, correspondence, and self-delusion.

Told through a wildly inventive mix of match reports, fan mail, court transcripts, newspaper cuttings, ornithological “sightings,” and illustrated interludes, this is a novel that treats tennis as theatre, romance as combat, and ageing as an extreme sport. Along the way, real-world tennis mythology collides with fantasy, bureaucracy, and pataphysical logic, as Andy encounters rival “GOATs,” prison systems, phantom coaches, and women who may — or may not — be in love with him.

By turns absurd, tender, infuriating, and unexpectedly moving, The Courting Lives of an Ageing Tennis Player is a comic novel about the stories we tell ourselves to survive the fine line between confidence and delusion masculinity, ageing, and desire under pressure and the strange ways love refuses to follow the rules

Illustrated throughout by Paul Warren, this sequel deepens the world of Confessions while standing confidently on its own as a bold, original, laugh-out-loud meditation on ambition, attachment, and the enduring hope that the next match — or the next letter — might finally change everything.

Next stop: Melbourne. Love all.

 

£19.99
Shop now