best pool books

[Carlton31698]

Rank books on pool(pool stories)
1 The Hustler
2 The Color of Money ( The book in nothing like the movie totally different story)
3 Playing off The Rail
4?
5?
Any other ideas?
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[Wally_in_Cincy]

"McGoorty" by Robert Byrne

Just yesterday I ordered both "McGoorty" and "Playing Off the Rail" from Amazon. Anxious to read them both!

[Hopster]

Those are two great books : Playing off the rail and Mcgoorty. Mcgoorty i read in 1979 and still browse thru it at times.
Its cause of that book that i tried three cushion and found it an enjoyable game.

[Bob C]

My favorite ( the first 3/4 of the book anyway) is Rags to Rifleman, Then What?, a biography of Buddy Hall.

Bob C~~As always, straight in, on the rail.

My two favorites are Mastering pool by George Fels and The Green Felt Jungle.....and I've read them all..

[Tom_In_Cincy]

"Playing off the Rail" is my favorite.
I've read them all. The number two book is not even close.
#2 "McGoorty"
#3 "The Hustler"

[JPB]

Hustler was a vastly better film than Color of Money, but I thought Color of Money was the better book. If they had made the movie true to the book and begged Gleason to do it in his last days as his last film it would have been fantastic. Tom Cruise could then have been scrapped.

Anyway, in addition to the excellent books McGoorty and Playing Off The Rail already mentioned, a not-strictly-pool book that is fantastic gambling reading is Jon Bradshaw's Fast Company. There is some discussion of pool in a couple of the segments, and there is a chapter on Minnesota Fats that is very good and not particularly favorable to him. It portrays him very skillfully, but with some subtlety and understatement as a lonesome phony. If you can find a copy it is one of the best books on gamblers ever written. Bradshaw was a very good writer.

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote poolbookguy:</font><hr> My two favorites are Mastering pool by George Fels and The Green Felt Jungle.....and I've read them all.. <hr /></blockquote>

Don't forget about "Byrne's book of great pool stories." edited by Robert Byrne. This is a good place to start, as it has lots of billiard related stories from a wide variety of authors.