Weekend Review - Mon 2nd July
The Tour and other highlights.
With the start of Le Tour only a week away, and the fact that it's beginning in London it's perhaps not surprising that cycling is dominating the sports reviews. Both The Telegraph and The Guardian have articles on the Tour and highlight some of the recent cycling releases. In Search of Robert Millar seems to be one that's being the most favourably received.
Elsewhere, Graeme Obree is profiled in Observer Sports Monthly. His autobiography Flying Scotsman has been turned into a film and that's scheduled for release on 29 July. There's a fascinating interview with Greg Lemond in the Sunday Times. Paul Kimmage offers one of his best interviews of recent times covering everything from child abuse to drug use in the Tour. It's well worth a look. Lemond was sceduled to release an autobiography (entitled Time Trials) in 2006, but that seems to have fallen off the schedules and been delayed indefinitely. If he's as engaging a subject as he was for the interview, then we'll have to hope that it gets put back onto the publication schedules.
Despite the celebration of the Tour's start, both Geoffrey Wheatcroft, author of Le Tour, and Simon Kuper, author of the Football Against the Enemy, offer cautionary tales of the Tour, particularly in light of the ongoing drug allegations surrounding so many of the riders. On that very subject, two recent cycling titles to consider are From Lance to Landis and Positively False.
One man who has completed the TDF route most definitely with the aid of drugs, though in his case there were the life saving therapuetic variety, is Geoff Thomas. His account of his 2005 ride is recounted in Riding Through The Storm. He was among the 5000 who were due to cycle the first stage of the route yesterday and he's also scheduled to follow the Tour again this year.
Aside from the Tour, cricket is the sport that occupies the UK's reviewers this week. John Major discusses his recent book More Than a Game with Bob Willis in Observer Sports Monthly and OSM also includes reviews of Indian Summers, Grovel, Brim Full of Passion and Fatty Batter.
The Sunday Times includes Penguins Stopped Play and Fatty Batter in their list of Best Summer Reads and Rick Broadbent, author of The Big If and Looking For Eric, offers a more detailed sports books round up, also in the Sunday Times. One of the titles he mentions is A Very British Coop (also reviewed in The Observer). I've just finished reading this and whilst my review is stilll in progress, I have to say it's a delightful book. My full review will appear shortly.
Over in the States, Publishers Weekly has advance reviews of The Best Ever Game and Notre Dame and the Game That Changed Football. It's slightly out of sequence (but what the hell, I missed last week) Publishers Weekly also has a review of Welcome to the Terrodome. MVP is reviewed in The Cleveland Times and Ty & The Babe also appears there. It's been out a while but Crazy 08 gets a hugely positive new review on Sports Prof. I haven't read it myself, although it certainly looked like it was one of the stand out baseball releases.
Finally, the daddy of statistical analysis in baseball, Bill James, is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal. The article is not strictly related to any particular book, but it's an intriguing interview nevertheless.
About This Entry
‘Weekend Review - Mon 2nd July’ was posted by Liam Doyle on Mon, 2nd July 2007 at 10:21:40 BST and filed under book reviews.
