Weekend Review - Mon 4th June

• 4th Jun 2007 at 12:29:12 BST by Liam Doyle
• 0 comments

Brad Gilbert, Shaun Udal, Tom Cartwright reviewed and Graham Poll in the news again...

Bit of a strange mix this week. There's not that many new releases reviewed but plenty of books that have been around for a couple of months appear in the review schedules. Looks like even the Nationals have difficulty getting reviewers to read new titles quickly enough. I thought it was just me!

The release that's generating the most publicity is, strangely enough, a Tennis book. Brad Gilbert's cult classic Winning Ugly has been reissued, presumably to capitalise on his enhanced profile in the UK since commencing work with Andy Murray. It's one of those books that's always been in demand and probably works as well for the recreational player as those higher up the ladder. He's been interviewed in the Observer and the Guardian are also serialising the book in three instalments. You can read the first extract here and the second one here. The third part will be (I think) published tomorrow.

Of the new releases, Shaun Udal's My Turn to Spin, is reviewed, mostly positively, in the Independent. Don't forget that we have signed copies available of this title. Whilst we talking about cricket, Viv Richards was the subject of an interesting profile by former teammate Vic Marks in yesterday's Observer. Although the article wasn't specifically about a book, Richards does mention the influence of Somerset's Tom Cartwright on his early career. Cartwright, who died recently, is, of course, the subject of Stephen Chalke's acclaimed biography. Chalke's biography is also reviewed in the Observer Sport Monthly.

Joe Calzaghe is on the publicity tour for his autobiography No Ordinary Joe and is interviewed in both the Observer and Independent. There's another review of Duncan Hamilton's interesting profile of Brian Clough in the Observer Sport Monthly. The Observer also has a review with At Home on the 18th. Elsewhere, Stealing The Wave is reviewed by Andrew Baker in The Telegraph, Opening Day is reviewed in the New York Times and Peter Marinello is profiled in Observer Sports Monthly.

There's a couple of forthcoming books given early promotion. The 200MPH Billboard is reviewed in Publishers Weekly. Publishers Weekly also mention a deal for a title called One Sunday in December: The 1958 NFL Championship and the Birth of Modern Football about the Giants Colts game of 1958. I think that's a very hot deal as none of the schedules have been updated to include the title. Publication is scheduled for Autumn 2008.

Paul Wilson in his Observer column yesterday also mentioned that Graham Poll has a release coming this autumn. He mentioned it was being published by Harper Collins. I've had a check of the publisher's forthcoming schedule and can't yet see a listing for it, so can't provide any details. We'll list more as soon as we confirm the publication.

However, I'm sure there is something being planned and I'm even more sure Poll will be happy to publicise it! In saying that, I still don't know why publishers think there's a market for the autobiographies of referees - David Elleray's and Jeff Winter's efforts hardly set the world alight. The only one I can remember doing quite well was Collina's. But we're talking chalk and cheese in terms of charisma (and ability) in his case aren't we...

A final piece of news is the death of Mark Harris, author of the acclaimed The Southpaw. He died last week and there's a nice appreciation piece in the New York Times.