March 2011 Non-Fiction Book of the Month.
As one would expect from the daughter of the famous and respected writer Alan Coren, it is no surprise Victoria Coren can herself write.
What makes her book interesting is the life path she has chosen which, in every aspect, seems to be neither one thing nor another. A well-educated, 'nice young girl' compromises social respectability with the seedy world of poker (and the even seedier world of porn films). The daughter of a celebrity father mixes with celebrities such as Stephen Fry, Ricky Gervais and Nigella Lawson (whose surname, curiously, she avoids identifying) but, at the same time, keeps company with the low life world of illegal poker hucksters in seedy, smoky vice dens. As a woman in the man's world of professional poker where, as Coren herself writes 'if this really were an upside-down world where all the gamblers were women, poker would be a much friendlier game. But I'm not sure I want it to be'. And even as a woman in an American-dominated 'sport', she remarks on her own 'crooked English teeth'.
First published in 2009, there are numerous reviews of this book (and views on its author) available online including this by her acquaintance and fellow poker player Martin Amis: "For Richer, For Poorer seizes the reader with its first sentence and never lets go. Victoria Coren writes, on several levels, with wit, honesty, and perfect freshness."
If this is an honestly objective review, then who are we to disagree? What we would say is that many reviews of this book state that you don't have to understand poker to enjoy it but, it does have to be said, you will probably enjoy it more if you do and you never know it might also teach you how to win a million…
| Primary Genre | Biographies & Autobiographies |
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