November Highlights

• 14th Nov 2007 at 12:10:53 GMT by Liam Doyle
• 0 comments

Dallaglio, Catt, Fletcher and Lewis dominate, but what else is out this month?

November sees the release of last of the big autobiographies for the year. From the amount of publicity they've been getting you won't be surprised to learn that Lawrence Dallaglio, Mike Catt and Duncan Fletcher are the real headline makers.

Your judgement on the validity of their criticism will probably depened on your view of the way that things from the dressing room have been made public. Personally, I think their comments were all fair enough and considering the scorn with which we heaped on the England 5 for the vacuousness of their books, it's nice to have some titles that are prepared to say something.

The biggest crime in my opinion is allowing their books to be serialised in a way that lets a paper present the headline out of context. Still, it's not as if a subject can claim ignorance as to how the serialisation process works. If you agree to the book being serialised, then you've got to carry the grief that comes your way in my opinion.

If you really want your book to succeed on the basis of its merits, have the strength of character to turn down the serialisations - it might mean less in your pocket but it's save the "if you read the whole book..." excuses that follow. Still, if you want to read the whole book, we've got them available and signed copies too.....

Away from those headline makers, and someone who's not adverse to making comments of his own, Lewis Hamilton releases his Official Story. This title supposedly has an initial print run of 225,000 which is huge for a sports book. I remain to be convinced of the need for a book from him at this stage of his career but given all that he's achieved, the headlines he's created and the sheer number of unofficial books, I suppose it was inevitable it would appear. One thing's for sure, it won't be his last so get used to reading about his life in instalments.

There's one other autobiography that I should mention and that's Charlie Magri's book, Champagne Charlie. Magri's career encompassed being a top class amateur, Olympian, British, European and World Champion and he's certainly got the recognition among members of my generation at least. The book is released towards the end of November and we anticipate having signed copies available.

There's been few more names in the public eye recently than Martin Jol. In an extremely fortuitous piece of timing, Jol is the subject of a new tomb called (wait for it...) Martin Jol! Written by serial author Harry Harris, the book has the cooperation of Jol himself and he's apparently contributing the forward. It should make yet more uncomfortable reading for the Spurs board. Still if it's too critical, they can always continue their policy of banning critical journalists.

This month also sees the usual collection of annuals including Autocourse, Motocourse, Cricket Year (formerly C&G Cricket Year) and Sports Illustrated's Almanac. On the subject of annuals and to demonstrate that Baseball is no longer just America's summer game, the first of the Baseball annuals, Bill James' Handbook appears. It's supported by The Hardball Times Baseball Annual.

David Frith has produced some excellent books in his career including the wonderful Bodyline Autopsy and he returns to form with England vs Australia, a revised and updated edition of his authoritative work.

Other highlights of a somewhat quiet month include 28 Day Winter, Fight of the Century and the impressive looking (even for a non City fan) Century City.

For fans of oversized men in strange outfits and a yearning for nostalgia, you'll welcome the reissue of Simon Garfield's excellent The Wrestling. For fans of great sports photography, perhaps even some images of said men in strange outfits, look no further than Sport in the 21st Century, an astonishing collection of wonderful sports imagery.

Athletics isn't necessarily the sport that you associated cult books with but among the running community, Once A Runner was very much the exception. Fans of that have been waiting years for the successor and after numerous false starts, it's finally here. If Again to Carthage has anything like the impact of the original, then the author will be a happy man. Sadly Once A Runner is currently out of print (and going for huge sums if these prices on Amazon are to be believed) but let's hope it gets a re-release at some stage in the not too distant future.

I also want to mention a couple of new instructional DVDs from this respected publisher. The first is Rowing and Sculling and the other is Muay Thai. Both represent the first forays into instructional DVDs for the publisher and should offer a useful compliment to the range of instructional books they publish. Let's hope that they have some success with them. There are others covering Triathlon, Swimming and Archery scheduled for release in early December.

Finally, we should add that November sees the announcement of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. Details of the shortlist are on the site and the announcement itself will be made on Monday 26th November. Details of the winner will be posted on the site and I believe that Simon Mayo's radio 5Live show will also carry the announcement live.

For what it's worth my money's on Bobby Charlton's book to win, although that doesn't mean I think it's the best book. Sadly the prize winner and the best book aren't always one and the same thing.