Mathletics by John D Barrow
As a sports fan and a maths teacher, I was thrilled to get the chance to read a book which claims to give us 'surprising and enlightening insights into the world of sports'. This is rather a frustrating read because it seems to have got the balance wrong in many cases. There are some chapters which are so short as to be barely worth reading – one merely points out that while humans can’t run as fast as cheetahs or perform gymnastics as amazing as that of a monkey, we’re better all-rounders than any other animal. This is true, but hardly seems worth wasting a page on, it’s so obvious. Then there are other chapters, like the interesting one detailing the points scoring system in the decathlon, which are good but could have been much better given more space. The decathlon one is a prime example of this – it’s five pages, so one of the book’s longer sections, but could surely have been excellent if it had gone into more detail. I can’t help thinking that dropping half of the sections and doubling the other half in length might have been the way to go here. Full review...
A History of Cricket in 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer
A History of Football in 100 Objects was a brave attempt, but was slightly let down by being a little too clinical. Being a game imbued with passion, the book lacked this which took some of the edge off it. Cricket, whilst inspiring passion amongst devotees, has a slightly more laid back following; one that may work better in this format. That said, being a game that has been played for five centuries, narrowing it down to just 100 objects is no less an undertaking than for football. Full review...
Born to Ride: The Autobiography of Stephen Roche by Stephen Roche
With all the revelations about the systemised doping culture surrounding Lance Armstrong's team in the 1990s, it was interesting to read a story of a time before cycling was embroiled in one drugs scandal after another. Although perhaps not as memorable as Armstrong's career, Stephen Roche's will hold a place in cycling history for 1987, when he became only the second man to win the Tour de France, the Giro D'Italia and the World Championships in the same season. A quarter of a century after that remarkable feat, Roche has produced his autobiography, Born to Ride. Full review...
A History of Football in 100 Objects by Gavin Mortimer
Given how long it's been played and how many books have been written about it, any new history of football needs to have some kind of hook to make it stand out. Gavin Mortimer may have found that, by presenting his history as A History of Football in 100 Objects. This prompts the question as to whether the whole of football could be reduced down to a mere century of objects. But then, if From 0 to Infinity in 26 Centuries by Chris Waring can make a history of maths worth reading, I guess anything is possible. Full review...
Sit Down and Cheer: A History of Sport on TV by Martin Kelner
Like many English sports fans, the majority of the calories I burn are used up by shouting at the TV and occasionally going to the shops for more beer and crisps. Sports books tend to be about the sport itself or biographies of those who expended great effort to reach the top of their chosen sport. But in Martin Kelner's 'Sit Down and Cheer: A History of Sport on TV', there is finally a book for the less energetic among us. Full review...
My Animals and Other Family by Clare Balding
Clare Balding was born into a racing family - her father, Ian, was the trainer of Mill Reef who won the Derby in 1971, the same year that Clare was born. Whilst her father would never forget the year that his horse won the Derby he would usually fail to remember that it was also the year of his daughter's birth. Horses came first and they were the priority in Ian Balding's life: the family had to adjust accordingly. He was a gifted and successful trainer who understood the animals in his care and his record, including Mill Reef's Derby success speaks for itself. Clare's childhood was separate from the life of the racing stable but she inherited her family's love of animals. Full review...
El Clasico - Barcelona v Real Madrid: Football's Greatest Rivalry by Richard Fitzpatrick
Nothing divides opinion quite like football and no-one expresses their joy and disappointment like football fans. For many fans, the most important matches of their entire season are the ones against their local rivals; the derby matches. English football has a number of these, but only the matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain have elevated themselves above mere derby status and earned their own name: El Clásico – the Classic. Full review...
I Am The Secret Footballer: Lifting The Lid On The Beautiful Game by The Secret Footballer
In the 2012 Olympic Games the UK delighted in the skills shown by our athletes. We were - naturally - pleased by the medals, but what impressed was the training and dedication of people who were frequently fitting what they did around the day job or study. For the most part they weren't reaping much in the way of financial rewards from what they did - but they shone. The exceptions were the footballers. I forget (and that might well be Freudian) exactly who beat us, but I doubt that there are many people pleased by the show they made. It's now the beginning of the Premier League season and I Am the Secret Footballer has arrived at the perfect moment. Full review...
I Kick Therefore I am: The Little Book of Premier League Wisdom by Alan Tyers and Beach
You remember Ronnie Matthews, don't you? He's the footballer who celebrated his one – and so far, only – international match by booing his way through the Faroe Islands' national anthem, then getting a red card for chatting up the lineswoman. He still thinks he contributed well to a vital friendly, however. He's the player whose career in piddling his way through continuously lesser and lesser clubs for far too long has only been matched in the recent game by Steve Claridge. And still he's bucking the trend – he's the only author smart enough to realise that four-hundred page, ghost-written biogs are unnecessary, for he's crammed all his life, career, philosophy and response to Twitter into an hour's read. Full review...
Jack Hobbs: England's Greatest Cricketer by Leo McKinstry
Back in the early 1920s, there were only three Test cricket playing nations; England, Australia and South Africa. In the summer of 2012, both nations have been on tour; Australia recently beaten comprehensively at one day cricket and South Africa about to start a test series to determine the best Test nation in the world. Given that history is repeating itself, it seems appropriate that a new biography of Jack Hobbs, England's greatest run scorer and a man who repeatedly blunted the bowling attacks of both nations, should become available now. Full review...
Lay the Favourite: A True Story about Playing to Win in the Gambling Underworld by Beth Raymer
It was a dream which brought Beth Raymer to Las Vegas, but the reality was that she ended up waiting tables in a low-end diner and living in a distinctly unsavoury motel. A chance meeting brought her into contact with Dink, the self-styled king of the city's sports betting and she moved into what was very much a man's world - of high-stakes gambling and a lot of people you wouldn't necessarily want your daughter to know. This is the story of how Beth learned the trade and moved into the world of the big money where gambling regulations don't apply. Being sharp was what it was all about. Full review...
Up Pohnpei: A quest to reclaim the soul of football by leading the world's ultimate underdogs to glory by Paul Watson
I'm a huge fan of both football and reading, so a book about football is always likely to appeal to me as the best way of combining the two. Recently, I've read books set at the pinnacle of the game in Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson's 25 Years at Manchester United by Will Tidey and about one man's struggle to bring football to a foreign land in Bamboo Goalposts by Rowan Simons. Up Pohnpei is firmly in the latter category, treading very similar ground to Simons' book. Full review...
Life with Sir Alex: A Fan's Story of Ferguson's 25 Years at Manchester United by Will Tidey
In his 25 years as manager of Manchester United Football Club, Sir Alex Ferguson has won everything, most of them more than once. He's taken his team to the top of English football with some lavish purchases, some expert man management and a ruthless dedication to his club and his players. Depending which side of the fence you sit on, this has made him either the most popular, or most hated, man in English football. I'm in the latter group. I'm a Liverpool fan. Full review...
The Voodoo Wave - Inside a Season of Triumph and Tumult at Maverick's by Mark Kreidler
Maverick's is one of the biggest, nastiest, jaw droppingly huge waves in the Pacific Ocean and as such has become something of a Mecca for the world's top surfers. Situated off the coast of Northern California its freezing cold conditions make it a far cry from the sun drenched breaks in Hawaii, Mexico and South Africa with the number of surfers adequately qualified (and fearless enough) to take on the cliff like drops probably numbering less than 100. Full review...
There's A Golden Sky: How 20 years of the Premier League has changed football forever by Ian Ridley
Twenty years ago the Premier League was founded, changing English football irreversibly. Also 20 years ago, journalist Ian Ridley wrote the classic Season In The Cold, a snapshot of the game at the time. Since then, clubs have risen and fallen, players have become legends, and Ridley himself has become chairman of not one but two non-league clubs – first Weymouth, from 2003-2004 (and again briefly in 2009) and more recently St Albans City. In this stunning follow-up to Season In The Cold, Ridley explore the effect that the changes in the sport have had at all levels. Full review...
How to Watch the Olympics: Scores and laws, heroes and zeros – an instant initiation to every sport by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton
Are you planning an Olympic telefest for a few weeks in July 2012? Are you one of the lucky people who have tickets to their chosen events? Or are you one of those many people who are genuinely confused by the rules, or the scoring and who would like to know a little more so that they can understand what it's all about? If so, you should look no further. We have the book for you. Whether you're heading for London or going no further than the television we have the background to the sports. Full review...
Jacobs Beach: The Mob, the Garden, and the Golden Age of Boxing by Kevin Mitchell
Despite not being a particular fan of the sport of boxing, Kevin Mitchell's compelling knowledge of the personalities involved in the fight game in the 20th century, coupled with a staccato writing style which got my attention quickly and kept it to the very last page, meant this book actually rose far above my expectations. Full review...
The Phantom of The Open: Maurice Flitcroft, the World's Worst Golfer by Scott Murray and Simon Farnaby
Maurice Flitcroft was forty six when he played his first round of golf. Most golfers start on the local course and hack around until they develop some skill. Not Maurice. That wasn't his way. He borrowed some books on golf from the library and decided that he was going to enter the Open. Yes – the Open. No starting at the bottom and working his way up – Maurice went straight for the big one. He ran up a score of 121 and the R&A (that's Royal and Ancient if you're not a golf fan) went ballistic. It might be said that they lacked a sense of humour but golf at this level is a serious game and Maurice was banned for life. Full review...
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Oceans' Greatest Furies by Susan Casey
They're powerful enough to capsize unsinkable ships, wrench oil rigs from their moorings and can destroy vast swathes of coastal regions, flattening everything in their path and killing thousands of people in the process. So what is it that makes some men, and it is mostly men, go in search of these oceanic monsters? That is what Susan Casey tries to find out in this engaging, often awe inspiring and sometimes terrifying look at the world of big wave surfing. Full review...
The Cambridge Companion to Cricket by Anthony Bateman and Jeff Hill (Editors)
Cricket has an international reach which can be rivaled by few other team sports, and this book looks at the history of the game going from England around the world to the other major Test-playing nations. While it's packed full of initially rather dauntingly dense prose, none of the 17 chapters are particularly long – most weighing in at a little under 20 pages – and the writing styles of all of the various authors are very accessible. Full review...
For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player by Victoria Coren
Some things are in the blood. For Victoria Coren it was cards. As a child she and brother Giles were taught to play Blackjack by their grandfather. He called it Pontoon but the most valuable lesson was that grandfather was always the dealer and always the winner. Giles played Poker but wasn't really a gambler. Victoria was one of life's risk-takers and she leant to the more adventurous side of her father's family. She was unhappy at school, preferring the company of her brother's straight-talking friends to the bitchy all-girl atmosphere at school. In the intervening twenty years she's won a million dollars, but for her it's never been about the money. Full review...
We Could be Heroes: One Van, Two Blokes and Twelve World Championships by Tom Fordyce and Ben Dirs
Meet Ben Dirs. Apart from having one of the most unfortunate names on record, he’s a fairly laid-back guy whose daily breakfast consists of two cigarettes. Compared to Dirs, his BBC colleague Tom Fordyce – a keen amateur triathlete – looks like Daley Thompson in his prime. But Tom’s ambition of winning a world championship is still completely unachievable, surely? You don’t go from BBC blogger to 100m champion, football World Cup winner, or even the number 1 snooker player on Earth, after all. On the other hand, there are some more obscure Championships out there… could these two unlikely heroes make their dreams come true, and be recognised as the best shin kickers in the world? Not if Rory McGrath has anything to do with it! In addition to the Cotswold Olympicks and their shin-kicking, Dirs and Fordyce try snail racing, wife carrying, nettle eating, and many more weird and wonderful events. The only thing they have in common is the humour which the pair see in all of them. Full review...
Going Mental: Reaching Your Goals in Business and Sports - Full Contact NLP Coaching from a Full Contact Fighter by Jakob Lovstad
Some books seem determined to put you off. Unless it's literary fiction 'Going Mental' suggests something that I've gone to great lengths to avoid. The man on the cover is bald, bloodied and apparently screaming. I've been avoiding men like that too. '…not for the soft and sensitive!' it says and whilst I wouldn't describe myself as either I do wonder whether allowing Jakob Lovstad to mess with my head is the wisest thing I've ever done. When I realise that he's a cage fighter I'm ready to run. What has that got to do with my business? Because that's what this book is about – reaching your goals in business and sports. Full review...