William Hill 2006 Shortlist Announced

• 30th Oct 2006 at 10:14:20 GMT by Liam Doyle

The shortlist for the Sports Book of the Year Award 2006

The shortlist for this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award has been announced. The shortlisted titles are:

• Andrew Greig - Preferred Lies: A Journey to the Heart of Scottish Golf
• Paul Rambali - Barefoot Runner: The Life of Marathon Champion Abebe Bikila
• Matt Rendell - The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography
• Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele Marcotti - The Italian Job: A Journey to the Heart of Two Great Footballing Cultures
• Guy Walters - Berlin Games: How Hitler Stole the Olympic Dream
• Geoffrey Ward - Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

My initial reaction to the shortlist is that it's quite strong, certainly more so than in some years, and is nicely varied. I'm a little surprised that neither The Big If or The Ball is Round made it onto the shortlist, but that notwithstanding, it's pleasing to see a broad range of sports being honoured.

William Hill's official spokesman, Graham Sharp, commented that

This is a vintage year featuring a wide range of superb books covering diverse sporting characters and subjects. The winner will have beaten off perhaps the strongest short-list ever assembled

In a year when sports publishing has been mocked mercilessly because of the plague of the ghosted autobiography, it's somewhat ironic to be told that this year's offering is the strongest ever. However I think we can all agree that the titles on the shortlist are all well above the standard of the "England 5".

In some respects this year's judges have a much more difficult task than in previous years. This is the UK's most prestigious Sports Books prize and in addition to having to select a winner as part of the normal judging process, they also have to try and select a winner that helps restore the reputation of sports publishing. We know that there's more to it than anodyne accounts of premiership life - let's hope the judges demonstrate it.

The winner is scheduled to be announced on 27 November at a ceremony in Central London. We'll have details of the winner and the ceremony here as soon as the announcement is made.