Published August 21, 2009
The Good Book
Beer Pong, Now in Book Form

On any given Friday, we feel obliged to indulge in sport that somehow incorporates
booze.
Still, we'll be honest: if you had asked us yesterday, we would have said a book with 196 pages about beer
pong was about 195 too many.
We don't usually admit this, but: we were wrong.
Meet
The Book of Beer Pong, a nearly 200-page opus devoted to all things beer-y and pong-y, hitting
bookshelves now.
Despite that old saying about books and covers, let's start with the packaging: the faux-leather cover and
gold-leafed pages make it feel like a Bible. Which, in a way, it is: give the book a quick flip and you
won't just find everything from a comprehensive history of the sport and tips on how to hold a tournament
("have the finals in the most dramatic position as possible"), you'll find nothing less than a consideration
of life's most pressing dilemmas. Like the comparative advantages of cans, bottles and kegs.
Of course, there's also a good bit about the sport itself. (And we do mean sport—the book's first line
is "Beer Pong is not a game.") We found ourselves bookmarking pages on alternative grip styles (including a
pinky-free method called the "Claw Grip," and an experts-only style called the "Royal Grip," supposedly
named for its "popularity among sovereign autocrats"), proper methods of distracting your opponents (only
some of which involve nudity), and (important in these thrifty times) a full page devoted to repairing a
dented ball.
We recommend the flame method.
VITALS
The Book of Beer Pong
official website