Double fault
Inside
Boris Becker (HarperCollins, £22)
WOE is Boris “Boom Boom” Becker. Banged up for a crime he committed, he insists, “by mistake”, the former tennis professional finds himself languishing among the bruisers of HMP Huntercombe, a category-C facility for foreign nationals situated near the broiling hotbed of suburban unrest that is Henley-on-Thames. It is, he says, a “shit situation”.
The food is terrible. He misses his girlfriend, who was 33 at the time. He is unable to continue bleaching his hair and so is forced to contend with the prospect of a hairdo that is slightly less blond than that to which he is accustomed. Clearly, this shit situation is untenable. The solution is clear: the 57-year-old German must initiate “inner change”. He must fling open the gym locker of his mind and replace Old Boris (impulsive; susceptible to manipulation; a sod) with New Boris (contemplative; prone to quoting Epictetus; not a sod).