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Summary: Trust Your Swing.
Review: A very funny book about golf (a sport I have recently taken up) and life (which I took up 63 years ago). I heard the author speak at the Sacramento Bee Book club. Funny and a nice person as well.
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Summary: Former and Future (?) Golfer
Review: As a "former" golfer, I found Driving Myself Crazy to be a delightful romp detailing the frustrations and yearnings of a novice golfer. No, DMC is not the "War and Peace" of sports, nor an instruction book designed to guide one to a zero handicap, as some reviewers apparently wanted.DMC is, nonetheless, filled with excellent tips from some incredible instructors that stick with you due to Ms. Maxwell's prose. After being hauled back out on the links at a college reunion, following what was essentially a 25 year hiatus, I was fortunately able to fall back on some of those tips. The "hot dog bun" grip tip in particular allowed me to regain some of the "Glory Days" for at least a few holes and not make a complete fool of myself in front of old friends. I recommend Driving Myself Crazy as an entertaining look at golf and its quirks, written the way golf should be approached, with a loose attitude that has fun at its core.
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Summary: A refreshing approach to a game taken far too seriously
Review: As a fan of Jessica Maxwell's excellent nature and travel writing I was initially appalled to learn that she would be exploring the "dark side" by covering that most leisurely of leisure sports, golf. I mean, fly fishing on wild rivers was one thing, but the manicured world of country clubs and automatic ball washers? However, after reading Driving Myself Crazy and recommending it to a few friends and family members (including two newly addicted woman golfers) I have to agree with other reviewers (save one, the anonymous "Reader from Eugene" who seems to have a bone to pick and takes this absurd game far too seriously) that Maxwell has hit a home run with this one. Oops, wrong sport... but I suppose that's next on her list?
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Summary: It's an adventure, not a thesis . . .
Review: As a reader and reviewer of books on golf, Mr. Gecan is a top notch PhD Economist. To appreciate Driving Myself Crazy: Misadventures of a Novice Golfer, one is best prepared to savor the tradition, challenge, color, natural beauty, sociability, humor, mystery, and whimsy of the great game that Ms. Maxwell describes so artfully, if one approaches the book with a macro, not a micro, view. The book, like other of Ms. Maxwell's works, is a cornucopia of insight, factual information, and self-depricating humor. Who among us who love and play the game of golf has not had at least a near miss with any of the tribulations that fill this light and deligtful tome? It's beauty is in the lack of seriousness combined with sufficient encouragement to inspire those who might be thinking of taking a swing for the first time. If I wanted a book to instruct me on technique, the shelves are lined with great works by the likes of Messrs. Palmer, Nicklaus, and soon, we must be certain, Mr. Woods. But that isn't where one learns about the soul of the game. Ms. Maxwell does the auld and ancient game a favor by introducing that wonderful dimension that distinguishes it from other things in life such as economics, physics, and math, which are Mr. Gecan's declared passions. I give the book five stars and can't wait for Ms. Maxwell to tackle a new adventure.
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Summary: A Lyrical Look at the Links
Review: As an American immigrant to New Zealand, where I have been told there are more golf courses per capita than anywhere else in the world, I thought that this book would be a good introduction to this popular sport. I was delighted when I saw Ms. Maxwell's book in the bookshop here because I have been a fan of her humorous adventures for years. I was not disappointed in the least and thoroughly enjoyed and often occassionally laughed aloud at the triumphs, frustrations (and bit of romance!)she shared throughout the book. Best of all, for me, is her writing style which I find inspirational, hilarious, and enough to make me want to pick up my golf clubs and embrace the beautiful world that Ms. Maxwell so poetically shares with her readers.
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Summary: Beginner's Mind Is Its Own Nirvanna
Review: Driving Myself Crazy is a quick read, even for a male reader like me; it scurries along like a topped tee shot, a hole in one that ricochet's off one rich golf truth after another. The book is supposed to be nonfiction; however I'm suspicious of anyone who's favorite club is her 3-iron. Besides the comic failures of every beginner's golf story ("Golfheimer's again"), there's a woman fishing for love and traveling briskly along a slicer's outside-in swing path on the way to golf wisdom. Hardly surprising, Maxwell turns out to be the quintessential absent-minded professor herself. I found myself changing my grip and my takeaway (without pictures -- her prose is that visual!), trying out the tips that Maxwell encounters along this journey. And I learned quite a bit about fishing to boot. This is a book that needed to be written, and I found myself reading with much delight. I may not be hitting it any farther or straighter, but then there's no cosmic reward for that.
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Summary: Look long and hard, there's no one better than Jessica
Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that genius consists of the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at once, and in the case of the art of golf and the art of humorous, lyrical writing, Jessica Maxwell has achieved the merging of these heretofore polar opposites. Driving Myself Crazy is not only a work of comic genius, but a testimonial to the raw nerve it takes to enter an arena in which you have never set even a tentative foot, and walk from the 19th hole, head held high, nine iron unbent. Of all the women writers out there Jessica Maxwell is the one who walks her talk, and what she puts so skillfully and wisely to the page as well. I say wisely because within her humor, within her ability to ask us to laugh AT her, not just with her, there are perceptions so keen and uncommon in their depth that to dismiss her prose as anything less than the work of a visionary is unfair. This is a book that only Maxwell could write, and one that if read on all its levels brings the reader closer to that magical porthole through which she sees the world, and all the games of the world, for what they truly are: pasttimes that show not necessarily our strength as humans,but our often comic vulnerabilities.
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Summary: Just a thought to share
Review: I must say that I find it hard to believe that anyone would do anything but fall in love with Ms. Maxwell's adventures in golfing. From her always interesting descriptions of her varying tutoring situations to her endearing naivet? about the game, Driving Myself Crazy gives a keen insight into her mindset as she attempted to learn one of the most difficult individual sports that exist. I also feel her unique perspective, though perhaps seemingly quirky on the surface, gives keen insight into someone's growing love of the game. Kudos Ms. Maxwell. I eagerly await more.
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Summary: Ummmm....I AM sorry I read it
Review: In deference to the previous reviewer, this book is just God awful. I'm sorry, I'm just not into quirkiness for the sake of being quirky (for example, never once watched Northern Exposure). This really is a chick book and not really meant for guys, which the prior reviews seem to illustrate. As an earlier reader mentioned, it's also hard to take the golf serious. I believe that in her first lesson, the club pro had her practice with a two wood (that's right, a two wood) over water (yes, that's right, over water). And when he first told her to "carry the water" she wondered where she should carry it to. Ohh gee, now that's funny stuff. Save your time and money and go find something else.
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Summary: A Royal and Ancient Wit
Review: Jessica Maxwell is back with "Driving Myself Crazy," in which our favorite femme d'adventure storms the male bastion of golf, learning that -- although she grew up as the complete 'non-jockette' -- she is a natural with a three iron. Whether you're an old duffer, a first-time golfer or a couch potato, you will enjoy Maxwell's misadventures as she strives to know what to do, what to call things, before anybody realizes she doesn't know what's she doing. Carefully plotted chapters recount her lighthearted story of figuring it all out. Along the way, many a chapter doubles as an exploration of some aspect of the game -- its history, protocol, clothing, environmentalism (yes!) and so on -- all adding up to golf's romantic allure. Not to mention the romantic allure of Graham -- is he boyfriend material? or is he a 'golf stalker'? -- who pops up from chapter to chapter to share his insights on golf, life, and fly-fishing, which is the other sport he shares with Maxwell (see her previous book, "I Don't Know Why I Swallowed the Fly"). Fortunate are we when Maxwell lets us carry her clubs as she seeks the tutelage of the world's greatest golf pros, like Australian pro-cum-philosopher Peter Croker and Croker's American partner, Cindy Swift Jones, an authority on the short game of putting; and as she plays the world's greatest golf courses, like Alabama's Robert Trent Jones Trail and Scotland's ladies' country clubs, founded in Victorian times, when G.O.L.F. really did mean "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden." And Maxwell hits a hole-in-one when she joins Nancy Lopez in a hotel kitchenette, cooking potluck casseroles while discussing America's sports culture with insights learned on the LPGA tour as well as from Lopez's husband, baseball star-turned-ESPN analyst Ray Knight. First page to last, Maxwell's droll style is matched to her theme, now poetic, then cheeky, always as captivating as the royal and ancient game she so capably describes.
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