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Synopsis: A "must"
treasure for all the millions of bridge players, THE MAD WORLD OF BRIDGE is
history, humor, social commentary, and satire rolled into one. It is loaded
with anecdotes of the events -- shocking or hilarious, from mayhem to
politics -- and of the personalities -- from the obscure collegian who held
thirteen spades to Culbertson, Goren, and other greats who give bridge its
mad and wonderful hold on us. In the 1960s, there were thirty-five million
Americans sucking happily on the sore tooth of bridge, and the number has
been in the tens of millions ever since auction had its vogue in the early
1900's. By 1938 Frank Condon told the readers of Collier's that the game had
become "a menace to the future of the land" and "was costing the nation
273,586,312 working hours a day or enough time to build two Boulder Dams and
one Panama Canal." Another social commentator called bridge a "disease." But
however dangerous its malignancy or contagion, the game is here to stay. And
Jack Olsen is here to be its lighthearted Boswell, with the first and only
definitive book on what bridge means to the world and whether society can
survive its grip. The tournaments, the innovators, the kibitzers, the
champions, the duffers, the great gaffes, and the exciting triumphs are all
here in this gaily irreverent bible on bridge. (And to think it all started
in the garden of whist, whence sprang bridge -- whist, which begot auction
bridge which begot contract bridge which led to murder, divorce, suicide,
mayhem, and other social evils.)
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