Never heard of the author before, certainly not a famous badminton player nor coach but I just came across this book at the library and decided to take a look. The original title is "Handbuch Badminton" published in 2009 and translateed by Heather Ross. The author was born in 1969. He is a journalist and has been writing about badminton for various national and reional publications ant TV stations since 1992. His book is not much different from many other books on badminton but he included Chapter 16 "Training" that gives a brief acount on "periodization, conditoning and mental training" and lots of colourful pictures of mainly European players to spice up the pages. However pictures of the new generation of players like Saina Nehwal and many of the young Chinese players are not included. There was a chapter 21 that describes "From the Backyards of Jakarta - Report on Badminton in Indonesia" in honour of the great game in that badminton-crazy country.
As a tribute to badminton, Brahms mentioned that "badminton is one of the fastest sports in the world" and gave the following statistics: 332 km/h (206.3 mph) - Badminton smash by Fu Haifeng during the Sudirman Cup 2005. 300 km/h (186.5 mph) - Golf tee shots. 270 km/h (168.0 mph) - Squash world record by John White. 249.4 km/h (155 mph) - Tennis world record by Andy Roddick.
