Weekend Review - Mon 2nd April
More Agassi, more awards and Cubs fans get nostalgic.
We've previously commented on the bidding war for the proposed Andre Agassi book and there's confirmation that it's been bought for a hefty sounding $5.3m. Not bad for a book that doesn't yet have an author and is about a sport that doesn't sell particularly well. Expect blanket coverage when it is released - the publishers are gonna have to recoup that advance somehow.
Onto books that have been published. Cubs fans get a chance to relive their last World Series victory in Crazy 08, Cait Murphy's retelling of the 1908 season. It's reviewed by George F. Will - of Men at Work fame - in the New York Times. There's also a first chapter available as an extract.
In the UK, Golf's Best Short Stories and Wisden both get reviewed in the Observer Sports Monthly. There's also a brief review of Grand Prix Saboteurs - at least there was in my paper copy. I can't find a link to it on their site so no link - sorry!. The Observer itself also has a brief review of The Damned Utd which I haven't yet read but is supposed to be superb.
There's an indepth review of Tom Cartwright in the Independent - nice to see a title from one of the smaller publishers getting decent National coverage - and there's another overlooked subject, sports poetry, being recognised in the form of Nicholas Clee's review in the Guardian of Not Just A Game: Sports Poetry.
The British Sports Books Awards held their awards last week. The headline title is that the Biography of the Year award went to The Death of Marco Pantani and the Best Autobiography went to Back From the Brink by Paul McGrath (published next month in paperback). The full list of winners can be found on their site.
The Sports Book of the Year category of the Galaxy British Book Awards (think Richard & Judy) went to Steven Gerrard's autobiography. Further information on that particular glittzy award can be viewed on the official site and Alex Clarke in the Guardian also offers her round up of the evening.
Finally, still on the subject of sports book awards, the Cricket Society hold their annual Cricket Society Book of the Year Award on April 17th. Details of the five shortlisted titles can be found on the Cricket Society site. We'll provide further details of the shortlisted titles shortly.
About This Entry
‘Weekend Review - Mon 2nd April’ was posted by Liam Doyle on Mon, 2nd April 2007 at 13:00:09 BST and filed under book reviews.
