Weekend Review - Mon 14th May

• 14th May 2007 at 09:38:50 BST by Liam Doyle
• 0 comments

Lionel Shriver, Alice Cooper - is this a sports site?

We mentioned last week that Lionel Shriver's Post-birthday World was reviewed heavily in the press. It gets another review in The Telegraph. Interesting to not that the reviewer says:

Shriver seems to enjoy writing about the game, and in the version in which Ramsey wins Irina she gives an account of Ramsey's [snooker] play that is the best sports scene I have read since the golf match in Ian Fleming's Goldfinger

Tell that to Clive Everton who savaged the very same in his Guardian review last week.

Elsewhere in The Telegraph, Andrew Baker reviews Gideon Haigh's Downed Under. He also mentions a book by David Frith called Battle Renewed which is Frith's account of the 06/07 Ashes. As Baker correctly points out, this title hasn't been released over here. I've no doubt had the Ashes been won, it'd already have been released but I'm a little doubtful whether it'll get a UK release, even allowing for Frith's reputation. I certainly haven't seen it on any forthcoming release schedules but we'll make some enquiries and if there's any news on a UK release, we'll post it here.

Alice Cooper's conversion to golf is one of the more unlikely sporting moments. But he's no mean player and indeed has gone on to become one of the better players on the pro-am tournament circuit. The review in Publishers Weekly suggests that this title may be a little more music than golf, but if you're a fan of his music (which I can't profess that I am) then you're sorted. Also in PW, is a mention of Dan Shaughnessy's Senior Year.

There's not too many other things that caught my eye other than a report in the NY Times about a planned surfing book and the and mention on The Global Game's website of a story that appears in Best American Sports Writing 2006. We've mentioned before about the quality of the articles that appear in that publication. It's well worth checking out if you've not come across it before.

One journalist who's work doesn't appear in Best American Sports Writing but only, I'm sure, because he's not eligible, is Hugh McIlvanney. News from the Sports Journalists' Association is that he's received another honour - this time the Edgar Wallace Award for fine writing. I know very little about the award itself but he's certainly a worthy recipient of anything that highlights quality writing. If you don't fancy battling through the paper version of the Sunday Times (and the increased size is still a struggle for me) then you should find the time to take a quick look at his work online. It really is worth it.