About The Book of Tahl: From Homelessness to Paralympic Gold
Forty-nine-year-old Tahl Leibovitz is one of the most highly decorated and celebrated American table tennis players of all-time, a Paralympic Gold Medalist and USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame inductee who represented Team USA at the 2024 Paris Paralympics. Tahl’s memoir is an inspirational true-life story of how a homeless teenager’s passion for table tennis helped him overcome his physical disabilities and turn his life around. “Table tennis saved me,” he says. With a foreword by Will Shortz, the New York Times Crossword Editor, and match commentary from Tahl’s mentor-coach, Sean O’Neill, the two-time Olympian and five-time U.S. Champion.
Buy the book, and follow the author on social media:
Learn more about the writer. Visit the Author’s Website.
Like the Authors Facebook Fan Page.
Author Bio:
He stands 5’3” on badly deformed feet. Bone tumors prevent him from straightening his arms or flexing his wrists. His hands and feet sweat excessively, forcing him to change socks several times a day. And from the age of 14 to 21, he was homeless, sleeping in subway cars and on roof tops, stealing food, clothes and money, and defending himself from the violent attacks of those who prey on the homeless.
Forty-nine-year-old Tahl Leibovitz is one of the most highly decorated and celebrated American table tennis players of all-time, a Paralympic Gold Medalist and USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame inductee who represented Team U.S. at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
He is also a high school dropout who went on to earn four college degrees, including a master’s in social work from New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. Today, he is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a thriving psychotherapy practice in New York City.
Tahl’s memoir, The Book of Tahl: From Homelessness to Paralympic Gold, has all the ingredients of a modern-day retelling of the Horatio Alger story: Childhood illness, abusive alcoholic father, bipolar mother, a homeless teenager hustling for survival on the streets, and a remarkable storybook ending as a world-famous professional athlete and prominent psychotherapist.
Tahl pulled himself up by the bootstraps of his strong character and an over-arching determination to become the absolute best table tennis player at the youth club in Queens where he practiced for four hours every day of his homeless years on the streets.
“That was how I overcame the shame of being different, being deformed,” he says. “By beating all the able-bodied table tennis players. Luckily, the people who ran the youth club didn’t know or care I was homeless and left me alone.
“Table tennis saved me,” he adds. “I didn’t take drugs because I knew that would impact badly on my improvement as a table tennis player. As my game improved and I became a really good professional player, the self-confidence born of that accomplishment washed over to other areas of my life.”