Reviews by Sport

Links to the various books reviewed, sorted by sport ranking from oldest down to newest:

One Career, Two Books series

1. One Career, Two books – Roy Keane (2002 and 2014).
2. One Career, Two Books – Tony Adams. Addicted (1999) and Sober (2017) written with Ian Ridley

Boxing

1. ‘The Big Fight: Muhammad Ali v Al “Blue” Lewis’ by Dave Hannigan (2002)
2. ‘Bouts of Mania: Ali, Frazier, Foreman and an America on the Ropes’ by Richard Hoffer (2014)
3. ‘The Murder of Sonny Liston: A Story of Fame, Heroin, Boxing and Las Vegas’ by Shaun Assael (2016)
4. Muhammad Ali – the greatest books about The Greatest

American Football

1. ‘The Education of a Coach’ by David Halberstam (2005)
2. ‘The Blind Side: The Evolution of the Game’ by Michael Lewis (2006)
3. ‘Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre’ by Jeff Pearlman (2016)
4. “All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron Hernandez, the Superstar Whose Life Ended on Murderers’ Row”  by James Patterson, Alex Abramovich & Mike Harvkey (2018)
5. ‘Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL’ by Jeff Pearlman (2018)

Basketball

1. ‘A Season on the Brink: A Year with Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers’ by John Feinstein (1986)
2. ‘The Blueprint: LeBron James, Cleveland’s Deliverance, and the Making of the Modern NBA’ by Jason Lloyd (2017)
3. ‘Golden Days: West’s Lakers, Steph’s Warriors, and the California Dreamers Who Reinvented Basketball’ by Jack McCallum (2017)
4. ‘The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown Between LeBron, Kobe, Doc, and Dirk That Saved the NBA’ by Ian Thomsen (2018)
5. A combined review of some of my favourite basketball books

Golf

1. ‘Tales from Q School: Inside Golf’s Fifth Major’ by John Feinstein (2007)
2. ‘Moment of Glory: The Year Tiger Lost This Swing and Underdogs Ruled the Majors’ by John Feinstein (2010)
3. ‘Tiger Woods’ by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian (2018)

Running / Athletics

1. ‘Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen’ by Christopher McDougall (2009)
2. ‘Two Hours: The Quest to Run the Impossible Marathon’ by Ed Caesar (2015)
3. ‘Fire on the Track: Betty Robinson and the Triumph of the Early Olympic Women’ by Roseanne Montillo (2017)

Tennis

1. Open by Andre Agassi (2009)
2. ‘Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession’ by William Skidelsky (2015)

Baseball

• ‘Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game’ by Michael Lewis (2003)

Motorsport

• ‘Life to the Limit: My Autobiography’ by Jenson Button (2017)

Wrestling / WWF

• ‘A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex’ by Chris Jericho (2007)

Mountaineering 

• ‘Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster’ by Jon Krakauer (1997)

Martial Arts

• ‘The Pyjama Game: A Journey into Judo’ by Mark Law (2007)

Miscellaneous

1. ‘Steroid Nation: Juiced Home Run Totals, Anti-aging Miracles, and a Hercules in Every High School: The Secret History of America’s True Drug Addiction’ by Shaun Assael (2007)
2. ‘Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers’ by Nicholas Smith (2018)
3. And here’s 12 I prepared earlier.
4. Championship Manager, Kindle Unlimited and a nostalgia trip.

 

Football / Soccer

1. Frankly Speaking by Frank Stapleton (1991)
2. ‘Football Against the Enemy’ by Simon Kuper (1994)
3. ‘The Team That Jack Built’ by Paul Rowan (1994)
4. ‘Puskas on Puskas: The Life and Times of a Footballing Legend’ edited by Rogan Taylor and Klara Jamrich (1997)
5. ‘The Miracle of Castel di Sangro’ by Joe McGinniss (2000)
6. ‘Keeper Of Dreams: One Man’s Controversial Story of Life in the English Premiership’ by Ronald Reng & translated by Shaun Whiteside (2002)
7. ‘Garrincha: the triumph and tragedy of Brazilian’s forgotten footballing hero’ by Ruy Castro & translated by Andrew Downie (2004)
8. ‘Full Time: The Secret Life Of Tony Cascarino’ by Paul Kimmage (2000)
9. The Beckham Experiment: How the World’s Most Famous Athlete Tried to Conquer America (2009) by Grant Wahl
10. ‘Days of Heaven: Italia 90 and the Charlton Years’ by Declan Lynch (2010)
11. ‘Red: My Autobiography’ by Gary Neville (2011)
12. ‘The Binman Chronicles’ by Neville Southall (2012)
13. One career, Two books – Roy Keane (2002 and 2014).
14. ‘Barça: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World’ by Graham Hunter (2012)
15. ‘Fergie Rises: How Britain’s Greatest Football Manager was Made at Aberdeen’ by Michael Grant (2014)
16. ‘The Man Who Saved F.C. Barcelona: The Remarkable Life of Patrick O’Connell’ by Sue O’Connell (2016)
17. ‘My Turn’ by Johan Cruyff (2016)
18. ‘The Deal: Inside the World of a Super-Agent’ by Jon Smith & James Olley (2016)
19. ‘Bayern: Creating a Global Superclub’ by Uli Hesse (2016)
20. ‘No Hunger in Paradise: The Players. The Journey. The Dream.’ by Michael Calvin (2017)
21. ‘Touched By God: How We Won the Mexico 86 World Cup’ by Diego Maradona (2017)
22. ‘Klopp: Bring the Noise’ by Raphael Honigstein (2017)
23. ‘Where have all the Irish gone? The sad demise of Ireland’s once relevant footballers’ by Kevin O’Neill (2017)
24. ‘The Billionaires Club: The Unstoppable Rise of Football’s Super-rich Owners’ by James Montague (2017)
25. ‘The European Game: An Adventure to Explore Football on the Continent and its Methods for Succes’ by Dan Fieldsend (2017)
26. One Career, Two Books – Tony Adams. Addicted (1999) and Sober (2017) written with Ian Ridley
27. ‘Brave New World: Inside Pochettino’s Spurs’ by Guillem Balague (2018)
28. ‘Soccernomics – 2018 World Cup edition’ by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (2018)
29. ‘Mental – Bad Behaviour, Ugly Truths and the Beautiful Game’ by Jermaine Pennant with John Cross (2018)
30. ‘Kaiser: The Greatest Footballer Never To Play Football’ by Rob Smyth (2018)
31. ‘The Barcelona Legacy: Guardiola, Mourinho and the Fight For Football’s Soul’ by Jonathan Wilson (2018)
32. ‘Gazza in Italy’ by Daniel Story (2018)