Coffee Table Book of: The Sport of Curling (Hardcover)

Coffee Table Book of: The Sport of Curling is a large format book of curling, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: granite stones and their handles, brushes and old brooms, the painted rings of the house, frozen ponds, lakes, rivers and quiet halls at every hour, the ice made and cared for, and a few curlers seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The kit is laid out plain: a polished stone with a red handle, a red and a yellow handle side by side, a stone turned over to show its running band, a brush seen from above, shoes with a slick sole and a grip sole, a strap on slider, a rubber gripper, a stabiliser, gloves, a delivery stick, the rubber hacks set in the ice and two stones in the house seen from directly above.

The making and care follow rough granite from a small island and a stone yard to a stone bored for its handle and turned on a lathe, then the ice: flooded in thin layers, the rings painted, the surface scraped flat and sprayed with pebble. The past runs from flat river stones and odd square stones, iron crampits and heavy irons to twig besoms, corn brooms, brass handled stones and small stone huts beside the old curling ponds.

Then the places, empty at every hour and in every season: halls late at night, at first light and in high summer, ponds in snowfall, frost, moonlight, autumn mist and spring thaw, frozen lakes in fog, blizzard, sea smoke, sundogs and the northern lights, a frozen river below an old bridge, a mountain village under the stars and a lantern at blue hour, and a few small curlers far off, walking out at sunrise, sweeping, holding the broom in the house and gathering on a frozen lake for a bonspiel.

Short notes run through the book, on the rules and how the game is played, the stones, brooms and ice and how they are made, and the long history of the sport: a stone weighs about 19 kilograms, nearly all of it solid granite, pebble is a spray of fine water drops that freeze into tiny bumps on the ice, a rubber gripper slips over the sliding sole, so a curler can walk on the ice without slipping, and the stone nearest the centre of the house is called shot rock.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.

Publisher - Cedar Pine Editions

Language - English

Case Bound - PPC

Contributors

By author

Dimitri Smith

Published Date - 2026-10-21

ISBN - 9671456003276

Dimensions - 27.9 x 21.6 x 1.3 cm

Page Count - 100