Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Roddy Collins

Paul Howard

Roddy Collins is a football man - now in the sixth decade of a career as a player (at sixteen clubs), manager (twelve clubs) and commentator. And he is a funny man: an unequalled raconteur with a sharp eye for the absurdities of the professional game and spectacular recall. He has made friends wherever he has gone, along with some high-quality enemies. When John Delaney said he could get Roddy a job if he'd just stop criticising him, Roddy replied that he'd 'rather dig holes in the road'. 
 
Now, with the brilliant Paul Howard, Roddy puts it all down on paper for the first time - the adventures, the rows and the craic - in what is not only one of the funniest but also one of the most eye-opening books ever written about professional football.

The Rodfather

Inside the Beautiful (Ugly, Ridiculous, Hilarious) Game

Joe Simpson

Joe Simpson has experienced a life filled with adventure but marred by death. He has endured the painful attrition of climbing friends in accidents, calling into question the perilously exhilarating activity to which he has devoted his life. Probability is inexorably closing in. The tragic loss of a close friend forces a momentous decision upon him. It is time to turn his back on the mountains that he has loved. Never more alive than when most at risk, he has come to see a last climb on the hooded, mile-high North Face of the Eiger as the cathartic finale. 
 
In a narrative which takes the reader through extreme experiences, from an avalanche in Bolivia, ice-climbing in the Alps and Colorado and paragliding in Spain - before his final confrontation with the Eiger - Simpson reveals the inner truth of climbing, exploring both the power of the mind and the frailties of the body. The subject of his new book is the siren song of fear and his struggle to come to terms with it.

The Beckoning Silence

Joe Schmidt

In the autumn of 2010, a little-known New Zealander called Joe Schmidt took over as head coach at Leinster. He had never been in charge of a professional team. After Leinster lost three of their first four games, a prominent Irish rugby pundit speculated that Schmidt had 'lost the dressing room'. 
 
Nine years on, Joe Schmidt has stepped down as Ireland coach having achieved success on a scale never before seen in Irish rugby. Two Heineken Cups in three seasons with Leinster. Three Six Nations championships in six seasons with Ireland, including the Grand Slam in 2018. And a host of firsts: the first Irish victory in South Africa; the first Irish defeat of the All Blacks, and then a second; and Ireland's first number 1 world ranking. 
 
Along the way, Schmidt became a byword for precision and focus in coaching, remarkable attention to detail and the highest of standards. But who is Joe Schmidt? In Ordinary Joe, Schmidt tells the story of his life and influences: the experiences and management ideas that made him the coach, and the man, that he is today. And his diaries of the 2018 Grand Slam and the 2019 Rugby World Cup provide a brilliantly intimate insight into the stresses and joys of coaching a national team in victory and defeat. 
 
From the small towns in New Zealand's North Island where he played barefoot rugby and jostled around the dinner table with seven siblings, to the training grounds and video rooms where he consistently kept his teams a step ahead of the opposition, Ordinary Joe reveals an ordinary man who has helped his teams to achieve extraordinary things.

Ordinary Joe

Touching the Void is the heart-stopping account of Joe Simpson's terrifying adventure in the Peruvian Andes. He and his climbing partner, Simon, reached the summit of the remote Siula Grande in June 1995. A few days later, Simon staggered into Base Camp, exhausted and frost-bitten, with news that that Joe was dead. 
 
What happened to Joe, and how the pair dealt with the psychological traumas that resulted when Simon was forced into the appalling decision to cut the rope, makes not only an epic of survival but a compelling testament of friendship.

Touching The Void

Nicolas Roche

Nicolas Roche has a famous surname to all fans of cycling. The son of legendary Irish and World Champion Stephen Roche, Nicolas had to fight to make it as a professional and even harder to make his mark as his own man in this toughest of competitive sports. 
 
His rise up the ranks has been meteoric, with top 15 finishes in both the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, but his attitude to his chosen profession has remained undimmed. Honest, eloquent and passionate about the cycling world, Nicolas gained acclaim and a devoted fan following for his Tour diaries serialised in the Irish Independent. 
 
Now a major contender for a podium finish in a grand tour, in the award-winning Inside the Peloton Nicolas tells in full the story of life as a professional cyclist and of the remarkable events that have brought him this far. From furious spats with teammates and exhilarating races against the world's best, this is a gripping cycling adventure and tale of a fiercely competitive sportsman.

Inside The Peloton

My Life as a Professional Cyclist

In Storms of Silence Joe Simpson recalls the severe snowstorm which put an end to an attempt with four others on Gangchempo and the infection which forced him to abandon the climb on Cho Oyu in tibet. During that expedition he has a disturbing encounter with a party of political refugees and a 4-year-old boy fleeing across the Tibetan border. He becomes obsessed with stories of Chinese brutality in the old world Tibet they overran by force 40 years ago. He also begins to question the ethic of playing rich men's games in Third World countries, contributing little to the local people who endure a fearful struggle to survive. Oppression abroad makes him see mindless violence in his home town of Sheffield in a new light. The books ends with his first trip to the Andes in Peru since Touching the Void.

Storms of Silence

Michael Tierney

In the early winter of 1983, a generous season for memories, Michael Tierney attended his first - and only - game with his father, John. For a self-employed electrician with nine children to support, this was the rarest of opportunities. Miraculously, Celtic overturned a first-leg deficit to thrash Sporting Lisbon, 5-0, with a team of home-grown talent, players that felt as one with the fans. 
 
As the years pass, that one magical evening fades in the bustle of family commitments and the constant spectre of unemployment. Then, in 2002, John Tierney has a severe stroke that renders him immobile and unable to talk. For his wife Catherine, for Michael and his five sisters and three brothers, the landscape of life would change irrevocably. But three decades later, Michael and his wheelchair-bound parent would make an emotional return to Celtic Park. 
 
The First Game with My Father is an evocative family memoir and a journey of discovery into lives that diverge, yet are knitted together by moments of sorrow and joy, and into the nature of identity, especially when tragedy renders a man voiceless. The most intimate portrait of a father and son and how a football team unites them in an unbreakable bond, it is also the story of a city, a community, and a treasured way of life.

The First Game with My Father

Daniel Friebe

'The whole point of a race is to find a winner... I chose to race, so I chose to win.' 
 
For 14 years between 1965 and 1978, cyclist Edouard Louis Joseph Merckx simply devoured his rivals, their hopes and their careers. His legacy resides as much in the careers he ruined as the 445 victories - including five Tour de France wins and all the monument races - he amassed in his own right. So dominant had Merckx become by 1973 that he was ordered to stay away from the Tour for the good of the event. 
 
Stage 17 of the 1969 Tour de France perfectly illustrates his untouchable brilliance. Already wearing the yellow jersey on the col du Tourmalet, the Tour's most famous peak, Merckx powered clear and rode the last 140 kilometres to the finish-line in jaw-dropping solitude, eight minutes ahead of his nearest competitor. 
 
Merckx's era has been called cycling's Golden Age.It was full of memorable characters who, at any other time, would all have gone on to become legends. Yet Merckx's phenomenal career overshadowed them all. How did he achieve such incredible success? And how did his rivals really feel about him? Merckx failed drug tests three times in his career - were they really stitch ups as he claimed? And what of the crash at a track meet in Blois, France that killed Merckx's pacer Fernand Wambst, which Merckx claimed deeply affected him psychologically and physically? Or the attack by a spectator in 1975? 
 
Despite his unique achievements, we know little about the Cannibal beyond his victories. This will be the first comprehensive biography of Merckx in English, and will finally expose the truth behind this legendary man.

Eddy Merckx: The Cannibal

John Cairney

James Edward McGrory (1904-82) is a Celtic legend, remembered today as the greatest goal-scorer in the history of Scottish football. His record of 550 goals in his 15-year career at Parkhead from 1922 to 1937 is unlikely to be surpassed and will stand forever as a memorial to a player who was a typical product of the period between the two world wars. At a depressing time when wages were low and work was scarce, his feats on the field provided a welcome and much-needed escape for the thousands of ordinary, cloth-capped Scottish working men who packed the dirt terracing to cheer on every move he made. 
 
Heroes are Forever tells the full story of McGrory's life and career, and is set against the vividly drawn background of the inter-war period. It is a portrait of a loyal, modest and inspirational man who lifted the hearts of his countrymen and raised the spirits of a nation. It was he, after all, who by scoring twice for Scotland in 1933 provoked the original 'Hampden Roar'.

Heroes are Forever

The Life and Times of Celtic Legend Jimmy McGrory

Luke Stoltman

Tom Stoltman

When Loch Morlich freezes over, we cut a hole in the ice and jump in. 
 
Tom 'The Albatross' and Luke 'The Highland Oak' Stoltman are the world's strongest brothers. Between them, they've won everything there is to win in the mighty world of Strongman. 
 
Tom can deadlift a 430kg bar to hip height, equivalent to about seven washing machines. Luke isn't far behind. Yet for the Stoltmans, being strong is about more than pure muscle. It's about overcoming adversity. And it's about honouring their biggest fan: their mother, who died in 2016 leaving the family devastated. 
 
They've also transcended the sport, not least through launching the hugely successful online Stoltman Strength Academy. Through it all, they've stayed true to their roots in the Highlands of Scotland, giving back to their community, their family, and each other. 
 
But it wasn't always like this. Back in 2010, Luke worked full time on oil rigs in the North Sea, and Tom was a teenager contending with the challenges posed by his autism. So, how did two lads from Invergordon conquer the world? Simple. They started lifting. 
 
In their autobiography, Tom and Luke Stoltman show you how to lift: how to lift the lid on life with autism. How to lift yourself out of the darkness of bereavement. How to lift the trophy at the World's Strongest Man.

Lifting

Becoming the World's Strongest Brothers

Clare Balding

In Clare Balding's family, walking just took too long - she galloped through the countryside and she galloped through life. 
 
Then, starting out in her broadcasting career, she was asked to present a series discovering the glories of Britain and Ireland. Clare caught the walking bug. 
 
Now she wants her family to share some of that pleasure. She and her brother Andrew are determined to conquer the Wayfarer's Walk, a 71 mile route. What could possibly go wrong? 
 
This is a story of paths and people, of (mis)adventures, and of life-changing rambles. This is Clare's story of walking home.

Walking Home

Great British Adventures . . . and Other Rambles

My Family and Other Rambles

Geordan Murphy

Geordan Murphy does not come from the leafy suburbs of south Dublin or the rugby hotbeds of Limerick or Cork. As a teenager he played Gaelic football for Kildare minors. But his greatest love, and his true genius, was for rugby. 
 
Playing outhalf, he led Newbridge College to the Leinster schools cup final - and was then left off the Irish schools team that toured Australia. 'He's not good enough,' a selector told his father. 'He's too slow.' Leinster didn't show much interest either, and so it was that a skinny but gifted kid from Naas ended up starting his club career at England's leading club, Leicester. 
 
Now nearing the end of a career that has seen him win over seventy Ireland caps - a number that a great many supporters and pundits believe should be considerably higher - Geordan Murphy tells his own story for the first time. It is a tale of phenomenal highs (including a Grand Slam and two Heineken Cups) and agonizing lows - none worse than the broken leg he suffered on the eve of the 2003 World Cup, when he was at the very top of his game. 
 
The Outsider is a frank, colourful chronicle of a career by a richly talented rugby player who developed, along the way, into a thinking man's rugby player.

The Outsider

'Clutching in my hand my seven copper pennies, I ran down the two flights of stone stairs from our tenement flat and through the East End to Kinloch Street, where, puffing a bit, I joined the queue of other wee boys lining up to place their coins on the brass plate above the iron turnstile, push hard against it, then climb up onto the dirt terracing and into Paradise. The rest of the world called it Celtic Park.' 
 
This is a story seen through green-and-white spectacles. It begins when nine-year-old Glaswegian John Cairney walks through the boys' gate at Celtic Park and embarks on a series of adventures that, over the years, take him all over Scotland and beyond. 
 
The Sevenpenny Gate is about a search for heroes, Celtic heroes. It is also the tale of an East End club of humble Irish origins that has developed into a worldwide brand and continues to command the devotion of its fans, even with the Celtic diaspora now spread across the globe.

The Sevenpenny Gate

A Lifelong Love Affair with Celtic FC

'I had spent most of my childhood thinking I was a dog, and suspect I had aged in dog years. By the time I was ten I had discovered the pain of unbearable loss. I had felt joy and jealousy. Most important of all, I knew how to love and how to let myself be loved. All these things I learnt through animals. Horses and dogs were my family and my friends. This is their story as much as it is mine' 
 
Clare Balding grew up in a rather unusual household. Her father a champion trainer, she shared her life with more than 100 thoroughbred racehorses, mares, foals and ponies, as well as an ever-present pack of boxers and lurchers. As a toddler she would happily ride the legendary Mill Reef and take breakfast with the Queen. 
 
She and her younger brother came very low down the pecking order. Left to their own devices, they had to learn life's toughest lessons through the animals, and through their adventures in the stables and the idyllic Hampshire Downs. From the protective Candy to the pot-bellied Valkyrie and the frisky Hattie, each horse and each dog had their own character and their own special part to play. 
 
The running family joke was that "women ain't people". Clare has to prove them wrong, to make her voice heard - but first she had to make sure she had something to say. 
 
My Animals and Other Family is a funny, brave, tender story of self-discovery.

My Animals and Other Family

Jackie Turpin

Now in his 80th year, 'Battling' Jack Turpin is the last surviving member of his generation of Britain's best-known and best-loved boxing family. 
 
Jack's father, Lionel Turpin, came from British Guiana to volunteer for the British Army during the Great War. He was wounded on the battlefields of France and invalided to Warwick, the first black man to settle in the area. Lionel married a local girl but his early death left her struggling to raise their three sons and two daughters in pre-Welfare State England. 
 
As young men, the excitement and gladiatorial glamour of the ring lured Jack and his brothers into professional boxing. From a home-made backstreet gymnasium, they punched their way into the record books and into the hearts of the British people. 
 
Battling Jack is a wonderfully narrated account of the life and times of a remarkable man who was once Britain's busiest featherweight. It is also the history of the beginnings of a black presence in British boxing. Turpin offers us a ringside seat at heroic battles and comic encounters. He takes us behind the scenes of a scandal that rocked the sporting world and into his confidence about the mystery that surrounds his younger brother's death. 
 
Jack Turpin has out-stared ignorance and prejudice, tasted triumph and celebrity, and endured hardship and tragedy. Heart-rending, raw, honest and funny, his is a story that had to be told.

Battling Jack Turpin

You Gotta Fight Back

Jon Harvey

A BBC Arts & The Reading Agency's Big Sporting Read selection 
 
'Warm, sad and funny... There is something very eccentric and British about A Fan for All Seasons' - Sunday Times 
 
A hilarious, heartfelt, nostalgia-infused story of sport, loss and the journey of a lifetime. 
 
After the sudden death of his older brother, Dan, Jon Harvey turned to the thing that had provided their strongest connection: sport, in all its myriad sublime and ridiculous forms. He made it his mission to visit as many events as he possibly could in a single year – to build the ultimate season ticket. 
 
A kaleidoscopic twelve months took him from London Olympia to ancient Olympia, from rugby balls to Rubik's Cubes, Wimbledon tennis to Wimbledon greyhounds, from tennis legend Roger Federer to darts hero Martin 'Wolfie' Adams, and much, much more. It's a celebration, of sport, life, and an unbreakable bond between two brothers.

A Fan for All Seasons

A Journey Through Life and Sport

In 1992, an Indian climber was left to die on the South Col of Mount Everest by other climbers who watched his feebly waving hand from their tent. He was filmed in his last hours for a television feature. Why did onlookers not hold the dying man's hand and comfort him? The answer appals Joe Simpson, who was himself left for dead in a cervasse in Peru in 1985 - 'because it might compromise their summit bid'. It is an ethical question that Joe is forced to confront as he climbs a hazardous route on Pumori. 
 
Now that Everest has become the playground of the rich, where commercial operators offer guided tours to the top, camping admist the detritus and unburied corpses of previous less fortunate climbers, Joe wonders if the noble instincts that once characterised mountaineering have been irrevocably displaced - as in politics, in business, in the media and in other facets of society.

Dark Shadows Falling

Marty Morrissey

Marty Morrissey - GAA broadcaster extraordinaire and one of the hardest-working people in show business - has been to every corner of Ireland (and a few interesting ones further afield) in his illustrious career. Everywhere he goes, he makes friends and hears terrific stories - and sometimes he becomes a character in them. Now he's sharing them with us, in a book full of his trademark warmth, wit and energy. 
 
Starting with his childhood in the Bronx and west Clare, Marty introduces us to the people and places that have mattered most to him. He takes us through his adventures as a Gaelic footballer and hurler, schoolteacher, and coach of schools teams and underage sides for his beloved club, Kilmurry Ibrickane. And he tells the story of his remarkable rise as a broadcaster, from the back of tractors and trailers flatbed trucks to Croke Park on All Ireland finals days - despite having being told by RTÉ Sport that his voice on an early audition tape was 'too thin, too high-pitched'. 
 
Now, having established himself as a beloved figure across the full spectrum of the Irish airwaves, Marty is ready to show us who he really is. It's Marty! is an invitation to join the Marty Party, a rollicking ride through contemporary Irish life and sport, from a true national treasure.

It's Marty!

Micheal O Muircheartaigh

Miche&aacute;l &Oacute; Muircheartaigh is best known as the voice of the GAA. But his interests and enthusiasms &ndash; sporting and non-sporting &ndash; go far beyond the fields of Gaelic games. In his new book, the follow-up to his bestselling memoir From D&uacute;n S&iacute;on to Croke Park, Miche&aacute;l brings us along on his travels around the world, and to the villages, townlands and sporting fields of the four provinces of Ireland. He recalls great days at the races and in sporting stadiums big and small, and great nights in the dance halls. Above all, he tells the stories of these places and the people he has encountered there &ndash; stories told as only Miche&aacute;l can tell them.

From Borroloola to Mangerton Mountain

Travels and Stories from Ireland's Most Beloved Broadcaster

Joe Calzaghe

IT WAS past three o'clock in the morning when Joe Calzaghe experienced the sweetest validation of his professional life. Victory over Jeff Lacy, a 28-year-old American compared to a young Mike Tyson because of his power and "take-no-prisoners attitude", left no one in doubt about the world super middleweight champion's talent. 
 
For years, Calzaghe's virtuosity remained a legend of the Welsh valleys. His defeat in 1997 of Chris Eubank brought him to prominence, winning for him the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) super middleweight title. But despite a record number of defences of the belt, his career lacked a defining contest. A long line of challengers and ex-titleholders were disposed of but the biggest names in American boxing avoided the ultimate showdown he craved. Hand injuries further obscured the true level of his aptitude for an art he began to learn from his father, Enzo, at the age of eight when - inspired by Sugar Ray Leonard - a rolled-up carpet in the family home in Newbridge became a makeshift heavy bag. 
 
This is the story of Calzaghe's extraordinary life, from his humble beginnings in his hometown of Newbridge, to his ascent to personal greatness, becoming the first super middleweight boxer to win the prized belt awarded by The Ring, the bible of boxing, in the division's near 20-year history. 
 
One of Britain's foremost sporting champions, a warrior and working-class hero, this is the story of the triumphs and trials that made Calzaghe a legend.

No Ordinary Joe

Kevin Mitchell

Gangsters have been around boxing for ever. When boxing took hold in Madison Square Garden just after the First World War, a new wave of criminals moved in: the Mob. It was then that Prohibition gave street legitimacy to organised crime right across America; and by the time Joe Louis arrived to breathe excitement through a country ravaged by the Great Depression, the wise guys were firmly entrenched at ringside. Mike Jacobs, the grizzled boss of boxing at the Garden for nearly twenty years, made the Brown Bomber the biggest sports star in the world, and a string of romantic writers ensured this would be remembered as the fight game's golden age. They mingled with underworld heavies along a strip of New York pavement near the Garden known only as Jacobs Beach. 
 
Kevin Mitchell's gripping book is the unsanitised story of those times and that place, of Rat Pack cool and the fading of the Mob's peculiar glamour, brilliantly told through the eyes of the men who were there.

Jacobs Beach

The Mob, the Garden, and the Golden Age of Boxing

Colm Cooper

'The greatest Gaelic footballer of all time.' Pat Spillane 
 
When Colm Cooper retired from inter-county football in 2017, he left behind a remarkable legacy. The holder of five All-Ireland medals and eight All-Stars, he was Kerry’s stand-out forward for fifteen years. From a family steeped in Gaelic football, and a core member of the Dr Crokes team, Colm was still in his teens when he first played for Kerry at senior level. Overcoming struggles with injury and personal tragedy, Cooper became one of the GAA’s most recognizable and best-loved figures at a time of tumultuous change in the game. 
 
But the man known nationally as ‘Gooch’ is also an intensely private figure who has never courted publicity and his personal story remains largely untold. Now Gooch – The Autobiography unlocks a previously unopened door, tracing a compelling path through the life beyond the headlines. This is the story of an ordinary man who became an extraordinary footballer.

Gooch - The Autobiography

Alistair Brownlee

Jonathan Brownlee

This is the story of how two skinny lads from west Yorkshire became the best triathletes in the world. 
 
Meet the Brownlees: Olympic Champion Alistair, World Champion Jonny. Brothers, training partners, rivals. They have obliterated the competition and set new standards for swimming, biking and running. 
 
In this revealing, often very funny book they take us inside their world. It's a riveting story of the races and their rivalry, as well as an inspiring guide to swimming, cycling and running. With the Brownlees in your corner, you'll do more than you ever thought possible.

Swim, Bike, Run

Our Triathlon Story

Dónal McAnallen

In 2001, Cormac McAnallen was voted Young Footballer of the Year. In 2003, he helped Tyrone to its first-ever All-Ireland championship win, and was named an All-Star. He was, by any measure, one of the best and most promising young footballers in Ireland. 
 
But in March 2004, Cormac McAnallen died suddenly of an undetected heart condition. He was, truly, a young star cut down just as he entered his prime. 
 
As he worked his way up through the ranks of club, school and inter-county football, Cormac almost always had his brother Dónal - just a year older - by his side. Nobody else in the world knew as well as Dónal did how badly Cormac wanted to succeed, how hard he worked, or how much thought he put into his game. 
 
In The Pursuit of Perfection, Dónal McAnallen draws upon Cormac's diaries and frank self-assessments, and his own memories of their experiences, to create a remarkable portrait of a young sportsman's mindset and methods. It is both one of the most remarkable GAA books ever written and - in its intimacy and depth - a book that transcends Gaelic games.

The Pursuit of Perfection

The Life, Death and Legacy of Cormac McAnallen

James Cracknell

Beverley Turner

Double Olympic gold-medal winner, James Cracknell. His story before and after his life-changing accident. 
 
In October 2011 James Cracknell, two-time Olympic gold-medal rower and one of the greatest endurance athletes the world has ever known, suffered a seizure at home as his young son looked on in horror. A man who had known no limits, a man who had practically achieved the impossible, was now struggling to master life's simple challenges. 
 
A year earlier, as James undertook yet another endurance challenge in Arizona, he was knocked off his bike by the wing mirror of a petrol tanker. It had smashed into the back of his head at high speed, causing severe frontal lobe damage. The doctors weren’t sure if he would recover and, if he did, whether he would ever be the same again. 
 
Touching Distance is an extraordinary, honest and powerful account as James and his wife Bev confront for the first time the lasting effects that the accident has had on their lives. It is the story of a marriage, of a family and of one man's fight back to be the best husband and father he can be.

Touching Distance

Seán Óg Ó hAilpín

Seán Óg Ó hAilpín is a one-of-a-kind Irish sportsman, the iconic hurler of his generation. He became synonymous with Cork hurling during a period when the Rebel County reached the highest of highs and was regularly gripped by controversy. 
 
 All of this would have seemed pretty unlikely when Seán Óg was born in Fiji in 1977. Now, Seán Óg tells his own story in his own words - a story every GAA fan has been waiting to read. Full of frank insights, Seán Óg's autobiography is not just an essential sporting story; it is an essential Irish story.

The Autobiography

Mark Schultz

David Thomas

On 22nd January 1996 Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medallist and wrestling's golden boy, was shot in the back by John E. du Pont at the famed Foxcatcher estate in Pennsylvania. That started a two day siege at the ranch before the du Pont family heir was finally captured. 
 
Foxcatcher is Mark Schultz's vivid portrait of the complex relationship he and his brother had with du Pont, a man whose catastrophic break from reality lead to tragedy. No one knows the inside story of what went on behind the scenes at Foxcatcher Farms - and inside John du Pont's head - better than Mark Schultz, also an Olympic gold medalist and a part of the Foxcatcher team.

Foxcatcher

A True Story of Murder, Madness and the Quest for Olympic Gold

Bob Humphrys

Bob Humphrys is one of the most famous names in sports journalism. As sports correspondent of BBC Wales's flagship news programme Wales Today, he was at the centre of every major story of the past twenty turbulent years. He was there right at the heart of Ruddockgate, there on the players' balcony when Glamorgan celebrated winning a county championship, there in the Mondeo driving Joe Calzaghe to his first world title fight. In short, he was where every sports fan would love to be - as close to the action as you can get without scoring a try, taking a corner or hitting a four. 
 
Despite a life-long love affair with sport, Bob wasn't always a sports journalist. Early in his career, his brother John - the Rottweiler of Radio 4's Today programme - took him aside and told him, 'The one thing you want to avoid is covering sport - that is not proper journalism.' But the man who always read his newspaper from back to front found it hard to resist sport's magnetic pull. After his successful stints as a feature writer and current affairs reporter - encountering everyone from Argentinian presidents to Danish drug dealers and Sir Anthony Hopkins - the BBC's Wales Today came calling, and Bob quickly discovered the politics in current affairs paled into insignificance compared to the politics in sport. In Bob's first week in the job, Welsh rugby imploded with a rebel tour to South Africa - and for the next twenty years Welsh sport would lurch from triumph to disaster and back again, with Bob right there in the middle, loving every moment. 
 
Tragically, Bob Humphrys died in August 2008. But he left a magnificent epitaph: this book. In Not a Proper Journalist, the former face of Welsh sport reveals for the first time the story behind the stories. The friendships, the feuds, the glory and the heartbreak, straight from the horse's mouth. It's revealing, exhilarating, provocative and very funny - and if that's not proper journalism, brother John can eat his hat...

Not a Proper Journalist

Sid Waddell

'I had not lived in the former pit village of Lynemouth since 1961 but the winding road north from Newcastle will always be the same nostalgic highway, each twist charged with vivid memories and powerful emotions...' 
 
So begins a story full of wonderful humour, emotional candour and hardy tales of tough times - a quietly epic family saga set amid the pit villages of the North East . It stretches from the 1920s, before Sid's parents had even met, to the final closing of the mine and his mother's death in 1999. 
 
Sid paints a picture of a colourful, tight knit community full of good times and hard work, god-fearing women and hard-drinking men. Always dominating the skyline is Auld Betty, the pit head that took the men away each day and, with a prayer, brought them back each evening. Amongst the unforgettable cast of his extended family and friends, we follow the Waddells' attempts to stay afloat and provide a better future and possible escape for youngsters like Sid.

The Road Back Home

A Northern Childhood

Packie Bonner

Irish national hero, a Celtic great and their most-capped player, Patrick 'Packie' Bonner is a goalkeeping legend. 
 
He was Jock Stein's last signing for the club when he left his native Donegal for the city of Glasgow in 1978, where Packie evolved from being a shy, homesick teenager into a confident, world-class talent and first-choice goalkeeper. Billy McNeill handed him a debut on St Patrick's Day in 1979, and Packie went on to provide the last line of defence a record 641 times for the club. A seasoned Irish internationalist, Packie was a vital component in the most-celebrated Irish national squad ever, playing in a golden era under the tutelage of the inimitable Jack Charlton. 
 
In The Last Line, Packie shares stories from his incredible career, including his greatest moment in front of a global audience during the Italia '90 World Cup tournament when he became the penalty shoot-out hero of the nation by saving a spot-kick that took the Irish to the quarter-finals stage in their very first World Cup adventure. 
 
It was an iconic moment that would change his life forever not least because, whilst in Italy, he, along with his teammates, had an audience with another goalkeeper, Pope John Paul II. 
 
Throughout his 80 cap international career, he competed against the very best in the world. Men such as Ruud Gullit, Marco Van Basten, Gheorghe Hagi, Roberto Baggio and Gary Lineker came to know the name Packie Bonner. Equally, in his glittering Celtic career that included the winning of four Scottish League titles, three Scottish Cups and one Scottish League Cup, Packie Bonner played alongside some great Celtic names like Tommy Burns, Paul McStay, and Murdo Macleod. 
Along the way, Packie had to endure a career-threatening back injury, as well as the devastation of a routine save going wrong and costing a goal on the world stage against Holland in 1994, ultimately leading to elimination from the World Cup in America. 
 
More than just the telling of trophies, titles and triumphs, this is the story of a Celtic legend and a true great of Irish International football.

The Last Line: My Autobiography

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