Table Tennis books and films - my list and your recommendations

says I miss 38mm celluloid
says I miss 38mm celluloid
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Old thread (pre-Covid!) and both the OP and zzzupp no longer post... but I had a question in my mind:

I was wondering if there are TT books that were "must reads", that were written in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, European, and other TT power countries, and were not known or readable by English speakers. It'd be interesting what they contained and how they compare with books written in the English by Larry Hodges, Schlager, Timo Boll, etc.

I'm sure this is more historical, as nobody reads books anymore given Youtube.

I'll echo this.

And I'll add Ping Pong: The Animation limited series to AV list in the OP. Good stuff

And thanks for resurrecting this old thread, @PhoenixTT - definitely adding some titles to my wishlist!
 
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I do still post here, on occasion! and I still read books, even if nobody else does. (How can YouTube supplant the reading of books?)
There are plenty of 'must read' TT books in other languages, but it depends what you mean by 'must read'. I'm personally not interested in 'how to play' type books, or motivational ones.
But, for instance, Zdenko Uzorinac (Croatia) wrote a whole series of historical books (in Croatian), one of which the ITTF translated most of into English and published as 'Table Tennis Legends' in 2000, detailed pen portraits of most of the famous (and many not-so-famous players) who played between 1926 and 2000, when the book was published. He also wrote two books covering the history of the World Championships between 1926 and the late 80s. I've taken the trouble to translate (using OCR and Google translate) a few of his books - just so I can read them! I've also done the same for Jens Fellke's book (in Swedish) on Jörgen Persson, and another Swedish book about Stellan Bengtsson and Kjell Johansson.
And there are plenty of Chinese books, one or two of which have been translated (but are hard to find), and Japanese ones (although the Japanese have always tended to go in more for TT magazines, often full of technical tips).
 
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