Aemilia Lanyer

Aeneas Gunn

Aerosmith

Aeschylus

Aesop lived in the early sixth century BC on the island of Samos, which lies off the coast of modern Turkey. He originally came from Thrace which was a separate country in those days, though it now forms part of Greece and Bulgaria. Very little is known about his life except that he worked as a slave on Samos for a master called Iadmon, and that he became a very famous storyteller. He was so famous that almost any fable which could have been told by him became attributed to him.

Aesop

Afsaneh Knight

Afsaneh Moqadam

Afua Hirsch is a writer, filmmaker, and journalist. She is the author of Brit(ish), the Sunday Times bestseller that explores Britishness, identity and belonging, for which she was awarded the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize for Non-Fiction. She co-presented Enslaved, a 6-part series about the transatlantic slave trade with Samuel L Jackson. She is the presenter of the Audible podcast series We Need To Talk About the British Empire, and Africa Rising, an ongoing flagship series about art and culture for the BBC, through her production company Born in Me Productions. She is a longtime columnist for the Guardian and is a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California.

Afua Hirsch

AGAPI STASSINOPOULOS is an author, blogger and international speaker who inspires audiences around the world. She has spoken at many corporations and conferences, such as Nike Women, Starbucks,Time Inc., Virgin, Johnson &amp; Johnson and the American Heart Foundation. She was born in Athens and trained in London at RADA before gaining a Master’s in psychology at the University of Santa Monica. She has collaborated with her sister, Arianna Huffington, to develop talks and seminars, and has worked with the Oprah Winfrey network. She is currently hosting a new podcast series in collaboration with The Huffington Post, entitled ‘Sundays with Agapi’, which includes guided meditations and interviews with prominent guests. She lives in Los Angeles.

Agapi Stassinopoulos

Agatha Christie

Aggie MacKenzie

Aghnia Mardiyah is a London-based Illustrator and Character Designer with a passion for children's books and animation. She is drawn to fun, bright and vibrant colours. When she isn't disappearing under piles of work, she loves to travel! Exploring foreign places, exciting new sights and sensations is what inspires her the most!

Aghnia Mardiyah

Agnes Callard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She has written for The New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Harper’s, Boston Review, and penned a monthly column for the Point. From 2019 to 2020, she held a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for the research that contributes to this book.

Agnes Callard

Agnes Jekyll

Agnes Bertha Marshall (24 August 1855-29 July 1905) was an English culinary entrepreneur who became a leading cookery writer, dubbed the 'Queen of Ices'. Her 1888 cookery book included a recipe for 'cornets with cream', possibly the earliest publication of the edible ice cream cone. Marshall was born in Walthamstow. She wrote four books: Ices Plain and Fancy: The Book of Ices (1885), Mrs A B Marshall's Book of Cookery (1888), Mrs A B Marshall's Larger Cookery Book of Extra Recipes (1891) and Fancy Ices (1894).

Agnes Marshall

Agnes Prus

Agri Ismaïl is a Kurdish author based in Sweden who has worked as a corporate lawyer in London, Dubai, and Iraqi Kurdistan. His work has been published in The White Review, The Rumpus, Litro, 3:AM Magazine, and Asymptote amongst other places. His piece 'Haunted Home' won the 2016 Stack award for best non-fiction for The Outpost, runner-up in the Lifted Brow &amp; RMIT non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Non-Fiction, and he was longlisted for the 2017/2018 Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize. Hyper is his first novel.

Agri Ismaïl

Aharon Appelfeld authored more than 45 acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction and received many international awards including the MLA Commonwealth Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction prize, the prix Médicis étranger, the Israel prize, and the Nelly Sachs prize. Born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (now part of Ukraine) in 1932, he survived the Holocaust and passed away in Israel in 2018.

Aharon Appelfeld

Ahmadou Kourouma

Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist and human rights activist based in London. He is the co-founder and director of We Are Not Numbers and a journalist with Palestine Deep Dive. Ahmed holds a degree in English Literature from Al-Azhar university in Gaza, and an MA in International Journalism from Leeds University, where he was a Chevening Scholar. 
 
Pam Bailey is a social-justice activist and journalist based in Washington DC. She lived and worked in the Gaza Strip following the 2008/9 Israeli assault, and co-founded We Are Not Numbers. Today, in addition to her ongoing dedication to the Palestinian cause, she dedicates herself to two nonprofits that advocate for people detained in American prisons -- including one she co-founded in 2020, called More Than Our Crimes.

Ahmed Alnaouq

Ahmed Errachidi

Ahmed Rashid

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

Ahron Bregman is the author of four books about Israel and the Arabs: The Fifty Years War (with Jihan el Tahri), Israel's Wars, A History of Israel and Elusive Peace. He teaches at the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

Ahron Bregman

Ai Qing is regarded as one of the finest modern Chinese poets, whose free verse was influential in the development of new poetry in China.

Ai Qing

Ai Weiwei

Aidan Chambers was born in County Durham in 1934. After national service in the Royal Navy he became a teacher and then, for seven years, a monk. His young adult novels have been widely acclaimed, with POSTCARDS FROM NO-MAN'S LAND winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal and the US Michael L Printz Award. With his wife Nancy he ran Signal magazine and he has served as the president of the School Library Association. His devoted services to children's literature were recognised by his receipt of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.

Aidan Chambers

Aidan Higgins was born in 1927. Langrishe Go Down, his first novel, won the James Tait Black memorial Prize and the Irish Academy of Letters Award, and was later filmed for television with a screenplay by Harold Pinter. His second novel, Balcony of Europe, was shortlisted for the 1972 Booker Prize. The novel Lions of the Grunewald appeared in 1993 and a collection of shorter fiction, Flotsam and jetsam, in 1996. Donkey's Years and Dog Days were the first two volumes of the Higgins Bestiary which concludes with this volume.

Aidan Higgins

Aidan Mathews

Aidan Potts

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Martin Greig

Since his move to Celtic in the summer of 2005, Shunsuke Nakamura has become a cult hero in both Scotland and the Far East. From the wonderful goal in his Champions League debut against Manchester United in 2006 to the strike against Kilmarnock that secured Celtic's league win in 2006-07, Nakamura has firmly established himself as a Celtic legend. 
 
Nakamura's ability to confront and overcome adversity has been the key to his success. From his rejection as a youngster by home-town club Yokohama Marinos to his omission from the 2002 World Cup squad by Philippe Troussier and his struggle to adapt to the defensive nature of Italian football, Nakamura has bounced back stronger every time. 
 
The Zen of Naka is a comprehensive, revealing account of Nakamura's career to date. It explores his development from the early stages of his footballing journey to his time with Celtic at present, and looks ahead at what the future may hold for the star.

The Zen of Naka

The Journey of a Japanese Genius

David Manson

When Arsene Wenger was appointed as manager by Arsenal Football Club in 1996, football fans everywhere gave a puzzled look and asked, 'who?' 
They were soon to find out just what kind of man had become a part of English football, as Wenger added to Arsenal's first Double win by leading them to another in 1998 and a third in 2002. Since then, he has amused and entertained with his erudition and always pertinent evaluations of Arsenal's merits and those of the game in general. 
Here are the most diverting and most intriguing comments of manager Arsene Wenger.

Quotations from the Public Comments of Arsene Wenger

Manager, Arsenal Football Club

David Bryce

From running with the infamous Calton Tongs to running Calton Athletic, David Bryce's life story is a remarkable account of crime, violence, alcoholism and drug addiction in Glasgow's gangland. 
 
A respected 'hard man', Bryce worked his way through most of HM's prisons in Scotland before an epiphany in 1977 made him realise that he was a hopeless alcoholic who needed help. A five-year battle followed, during which he sank into the abyss of heroin addiction before finally getting clean. 
 
In 1985, in an effort to help others who were struggling against substance abuse, Bryce set up Calton Athletic, a football team and social group made up solely of recovering drug addicts. Reformed gangster Jimmy Boyle was one of the first to have faith in Bryce and Calton Athletic, but the club eventually won widespread respect. Gordon Brown, then a young MP, was so impressed that he wrote an article for The Observer which led to a TV film starring Lenny Henry and Robbie Coltrane. In the '90s, Ewan McGregor, Irvine Welsh and the Trainspotting crew sought Bryce's advice and friendship during the making of the internationally acclaimed cult film, while Robbie Williams begged to switch nationality and play for Calton Atheltic in an 'England v. Scotland' celebrity charity match. 
 
Bryce's uncompromising belief that the only way to come off drugs is to go cold turkey and stay completely clean saw him clash with government agencies over the 'harm-reduction' policy of recent years. The club's statutory funding was withdrawn in 1998, but today Calton Athletic are still providing an invaluable lifeline while the 'official' drugs policy has become increasingly discredited. 
 
Alive and Kicking is an inspirational tale of survival and success against the odds.

Alive and Kicking

A Story of Crime, Addiction and Redemption in Glasgow's Gangland

Stephen North

Paul Hodson

How would you feel if your football club was bought by a businessman who saw your ground as real estate? And what if your ground was demolished leaving you with nowhere to play next season? 
 
 Many fans believe that when Bill Archer, a Blackburn-based entrepreneur, bought Brighton and Hove Albion, he had no passion for the club or the game but rather saw an opportunity to make a profit. If so, he made the fatal mistake of misjudging football fans. 
 
 In July 1995, Brighton's local daily paper led its front page with the headline 'Seagulls Migrate', announcing that the Goldstone Ground was to be sold to a property developer for £7.4 million and that 'home' games were to be played at Portsmouth. All this without one word of consultation with the fans. 
 
 What followed was the biggest campaign in the history of football to save a club. Drawing on dozens of interviews with people directly involved - the fans, the FA, the players and the management - Build a Bonfire dramatically traces the progress of the two-year fight with the board: two years of despair, absurdity and solidarity. 
 
 In so doing, the book not only explores implications for other clubs, in a world where the battle lines between football and money are being drawn ever tighter, but also creates a picture of that strange and wonderful thing: the football fan. 
 
 And having lived through the crisis and listened to the fans, the authors can offer their Ten Essential Steps to Depose your Club Chairman, should the need arise . . .

Build a Bonfire

How Football Fans United to Save Brighton and Hove Albion

Ged Clarke

When Newcastle United crashed out of the FA Cup in Cardiff in April 2005, it was official: the second best-supported club in England and the eleventh richest in the world had completed 50 years without winning a domestic trophy. 
 
Since their last success - an FA Cup win in 1955 - no less than thirty-two clubs have won one of the three major prizes in the English game, but not the Magpies. In that half century, they've employed some of the biggest names in world football, yet most of their fanatical supporters have never seen them win a pot. 
 
In 2004, Sir Bobby Robson paid the price for failing to bring the holy grail to the Geordie faithful. And in 2006, Graeme Souness was next to go, the 17th manager to try - and fail - to win one of English football's glittering prizes for the longest suffering fans in the land. 
 
In Newcastle United: Fifty Years of Hurt, Ged Clarke examines this extraordinary football phenomenon with all the humour you would expect from a disappointed but dedicated United fan. He chronicles the decades of disaster and talks to Newcastle legends such as Peter Beardsley, Les Ferdinand, Jack Charlton, Bob Moncur and Malcolm Macdonald in a bid to discover an explanation for the longest losing streak in top-class football.

Newcastle United

Fifty Years of Hurt

Roger Hutchinson

R Hutchinson

This is the full story, unofficial and uncensored, of one of the greatest football clubs in the country. From its birth in the 1890s to its rebirth in the 1990s and up to season 2003-4, The Toon tells of a small soccer club, long in the shadow of an enormous rival, which grew to eclipse that rival - and every other club in Great Britain. Roger Hutchinson brings to life the sensational early successes of Newcastle United, recreating the great Anglo-Scottish team which dominated the Football League before the First World War. He vividly describes the helter-skelter attacking sides of the 1930s and the Cup giants of the 1950s, and gives us the European conquerors of the 1960s and the squads of the 1970s and '80s, before showing us how today's cosmopolitan side of title-chasing internationals was built.This lively, hard-hitting book portrays the brilliant management of such legends as Frank Watt and takes us down through the thrilling decades right up to the reign of Sir Bobby Robson. In its pages we see the educated play of Andy Aitken and Colin Veitch; we watch as the fast and furious centre-forward play of Jock Peddie paves the way for the era of the great Hughie Gallacher and the unique Jackie Milburn. It assesses the merits of all of their heirs, from Keegan to Beardsley, from Macdonald to Shearer, from Moncur to Dyer. Exploring and explaining the lean years as well as the successful decades, The Toon exposes the bad managers, incompetent directors and players who were unworthy of the black and white stripes. It takes an unflinching look at the lost opportunities and the Geordie footballers who went missing. But it also offers us the geniuses, the household names, the men who have lit up Tyneside and the world beyond in a hundred-year sequence of unforgettable League and Cup campaigns. Most of all, The Toon looks from the past towards a glorious future.

The Toon

A Complete History of Newcastle United Football Club

Ryan Giggs

Joe Lovejoy

Ryan Giggs first played for Manchester United in the season before the Premiership began; back when Bryan Robson was still captain. He took possession of United's left wing and never loosened his grip. Over a fourteen year career so far, he's seen them all come and go: Cantona, Schmeichel, Beckham and the rest. 
Sir Alex Ferguson said of Giggs 'I knew we had an outstanding talent when we gave him his debut.' That was back in 1991, but it remains as true in 2005 as it ever was. Giggs has been a pivotal figure in United's dominance of the Premiership. There have been rivals but no other team can match the their sustained record of success over recent years. And Giggs is the only player to have played in all eight of those title winning campaigns. 
Off the pitch, Ryan Giggs has always closely guarded his private life. But here he opens up for the first time, sharing details of the sometimes turbulent childhood that shaped him and the relationships that have mattered to him to reveal the man behind the famous number 11 red shirt. 
One thing seems clear: the Old Trafford crowd will be singing 'Giggs will tear you apart again!' for a few years yet ...

Giggs

The Autobiography

John Robertson

John Lawson

The unprecedented success of Nottingham Forest under master manager Brian Clough is one of the greatest stories in football folklore. Winning the European Cup in 1979 and 1980 were the remarkable highlights of that era in the club's history. And the player at the heart of those Forest glories was winger John Robertson, who fashioned the goal that conquered Europe a first time and then scored the match-winner as Clough's side retained the trophy. 
 
His unkempt and unshaven appearance made him the most unlikely of footballers but his artistry and vision made him the creative on-the-field force behind a Forest side that swept all before them. 
 
After retiring from playing, Robertson went on to strike up a wonderfully successful managerial partnership with Martin O'Neill at Leicester, Celtic and Aston Villa. Yet, amid his years of football fame, Robertson has known moments of deep personal tragedy, with the death of his daughter, who had cerebral palsy, at the age of 13 and the loss of his elder brother in a car crash. 
 
In John Robertson: Super Tramp, the footballing legend reveals all in a humorous and touching memoir that switches engagingly between footballing glory and personal heartache.

John Robertson: Super Tramp

My Autobiography

John Cairney

'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

Brian Clough

In interviews ranging from 1972 to 2000, Brian Clough talks about 'the real Brian Clough' - how he is perceived by other people; his bluntness and forceful opinions, and what makes him a good football manager. He also discusses the prospect of becoming an MP; his dream job; football hysteria and hooliganism; his childhood and mother's death; and being imitated by Mike Yarwood. In addition, he considers what people may say about him after his death; buying football players and having managerial ability, as well as sport on TV; leaving Nottingham Forest, and his very public falling out with Peter Taylor. 
 
 Due to the age and nature of this archive material, the sound quality may vary. 
 
©2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Brian Clough In His Own Words

'. . . it is now!' With these legendary three words the 1966 World Cup final came to an end. England had won, and at 5.15 p.m. on 30 July 1966, Bobby Moore wiped his hands on his shorts, shook hands with the Queen, and took delivery of the Jules Rimet trophy before a worldwide television audience of 600 million. 
 
It was, and remains, the single greatest British sporting achievement. Alf Ramsey had taken a national team whose fortunes and confidence were at their lowest ebb, and made them World Champions. In doing so he was accused of changing the face of soccer, of turning a 'noble game' into a sport which was dominated by fitness, defences and the training park. Ramsey's 'wingless wonders', it was said, 'put football back 100 years.' 
 
 How far did he and his squad set out to win sport's greatest trophy by any means possible, and how much did accident and circumstance dictate their victory? How good were Ramsey's England? 
 
 Award-winning sportswriter and historian Roger Hutchinson tells a story which sparkles with wit and with sporting brilliance. 
 
 '66 is the story of the greatest sporting tournament ever to take place in Britain, one that marked the birth of the modern game. It is the story of a sporting adventure which, far from putting football back 100 years, catapulted it unwillingly into the future. It is a tragedy told with a smile on its face. It is a tale that no sports fan will want to miss.

The Inside Story of England's 1966 World Cup Triumph

Hunter Davies

Hunter Davies's first major interview was with John Masefield for The Sunday Times in 1963. In the years since, he has interviewed many of the most famous people that the late twentieth century has to offer, from James Baldwin and Orson Welles to Jack Nicholson and Salman Rushdie. in an eclectic and highly readable selection, we learn that Noel Coward enjoyed watching operations and considered himself 'about as decadent as a suet pudding', David Hockney dyed his hair because 'blonds have more fun', and Anthony Burgess had yet to touch the body of an Englishwoman. Christy Brown concedes 'I'm just a run-of-the-mill genius', while Alan Sugar admits 'I'm a miserable sod'. The book opens with a specially written introduction in which Hunter Davies explores the art of the Celebrity Interview, and turns the tables to interview fellow practitioners, such as Lynn Barber and Angela Lambert.

Hunting People

Thirty Years of Interviews with the Famous

Into the Light reveals the full thrilling story of Sunderland Football Club - charting the club's progress from being the first great team to dominate the Football League, to the squad which returned to the top of English soccer at the dawn of the new millennium. Hutchinson traces a journey from Newcastle Road to the Stadium of Light by way of Roker Park. 
 
The early days of the Team Of All The Talents - the side in red-and-white stripes which took the English League by storm, breaking records and their opponents' hearts year after brilliant year - are brought vividly to life for the first time. 
 
Great goalscorers like Johnny Campbell and Jimmy Gillespie and sensational goalkeepers such as the legendary Ned Doig stride out of the pages of Into The Light; and the figures whose brilliance made Roker roar - from Len Shackleton and Brian Clough to the modern greats - are vividly portrayed. 
 
League successes came easily and early to Sunderland. Into The Light explores the club's devotion to winning trophies with style. The long - and finally triumphant - quest for FA cup victories is followed game by game. The heartbreaks and disappointments are also here in this see-saw ride through 120 years of English football, which ends as it began - right at the very top. This is the history of a football club and more - it is the tale of British soccer.

Into the Light

A Complete History of Sunderland Football Club

Derick Allsop

Manchester United are one of the biggest football clubs in the world. Their fame has spread to the most remote corners on earth. The legend grew out of one man's obsession with taking his club to the pinnacle of the European game. Matt Busby was a visionary as well as an exceptional manager, and he defied the Establishment by leading his young English champions into Continental combat. 
 
That crusade was cruelly savaged in 1958 when eight of his players were killed in the Munich air crash. Busby survived and, amazingly, rebuilt a side - including the revered trinity of Charlton, Law and Best - which was good enough to win the League Championship twice and, just a decade after the tragedy, realise the dream in that mesmeric final against Benificia. England had its first champions of Europe. 
 
This book celebrates the glory of '68 in the company of the Wembley heroes and traces the club's decline and regeneration into a force aspiring to relive the ultimate dream.

Reliving the Dream

The Triumph and Tears of Manchester United's 1968 European Cup Heroes

Patrick Barclay

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 
 
Sir Alex Ferguson is the most controversial and compelling figure in football. For many he ranks as the greatest manager of all time. He is certainly the most successful. 
 
It's been more than ten years since Ferguson's Manchester United triumphed over Bayern Munich in the dying seconds of the Champions League final. Since then he has presided over the rise and fall and rise again of José Mourinho; the arrival and departure of the world's best player, Ronaldo; the removal of one English talisman - Beckham - and the irresistible instalment of another - Rooney. Ferguson has been instrumental in making the Premier League the most successful competition in football, and he has endured while the mountains of cash have turned to valleys of debt. 
 
Throughout, award-winning journalist Patrick Barclay has been pitch-side and spoken to all those who know Ferguson best - fellow managers, former players, colleagues and commentators. The result is Football - Bloody Hell!: the definitive work on the game's greatest living legend.

Football - Bloody Hell!

The Biography of Alex Ferguson

Robert Philip

Scotland may not have won a World Cup (yet!), but many of the country’s sportsmen and women are revered as global legends, including Olympic and US Open champion Andy Murray and winner of six Olympic gold medals, Sir Chris Hoy. In football, the likes of Denis Law, ‘Slim’ Jim Baxter and Jimmy ‘Jinky’ Johnstone would not have looked out of place in the canary yellow of Brazil, while managers Sir Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Jock Stein have become part of football folklore, as has Sir Alex Ferguson in more recent times. 
 
Amazingly, Scots have reached the top in just about every major sport: Jim Clark and Sir Jackie Stewart in Formula One; Andy Murray in tennis; Ken Buchanan and Benny Lynch in the boxing ring; Chris Hoy in cycling; sprinters Allan Wells and Eric Liddell on the Olympic track; and, as befits a nation renowned as ‘the home of golf’, Sandy Lyle was recognised as the greatest player on the planet upon winning the Masters in 1988. 
 
Scottish sport is the richest of tapestries and in Scottish Sporting Legends the cream of the crop are entertainingly profiled in a revealing collection of pen portraits of stars past and present.

Scottish Sporting Legends

Mark Hodkinson

Blue Moon traces a season in the life of Manchester City. Not just any season, but 1998-99, when the once-proud club, with two League Championships and four FA Cup wins to its name - not to mention a phenomenal fan base - was forced to battle the likes of Macclesfield Town, Colchester United and Wigan Athletic in English football's third flight. 
 
Mark Hodkinson was involved in every aspect of the club through a long, stirring season, one which culminated in the euphoria of promotion: mingling with players, ex-players, directors, office staff and fans, he was constantly on the look-out for the unusual, the offbeat, the hopeful and the heartbreaking. Through it all, he remained impartial, steadfastly resisting the temptation to become a mere pawn for the club's PR operation. 
 
Originally commissioned as a series of weekly articles for The Times newspaper, Hodkinson's column soon acquired cult status among fans. Now, in Blue Moon, the author has brought these articles together and, along with a considerable number of further anecdotes, both comical and moving, provides an unprecedented insight into the passionate community that is Manchester City FC.

Blue Moon

The Modern Football Classic of a Season Down Among the Dead Men

The FA Premier League was born 20 years ago, on 23 September 1991, and has since established itself as the most popular club competition in world football. At the start, however, there was opposition from the players' union and the Football League. Then the breakaway elite were faced with the exposure of the game's 'bungs' culture, which stained the reputations of Brian Clough and George Graham, among others. 
 
After weathering that storm, the new league was threatened again by the very real possibility of financial meltdown, which was averted only by the controversial takeover of many top clubs by predatory overseas owners. 
 
Joe Lovejoy reported on the creation of the Premier League for The Independent and revisits the story in Glory, Goals and Greed, interviewing many of the 'founding fathers'. Later, as chief football correspondent at the Sunday Times, he witnessed all the main events and has spoken again to those involved to shed new light on the best matches, best players and standout incidents of the Premier League's enthralling first 20 years.

Glory, Goals and Greed

Twenty Years of the Premier League

Gary Edwards

Between 1964 and 1992, Leeds United won eleven fabulous trophies, but the team were runners-up just as often. They missed out on many more titles and cups, not least club football's greatest prize, the European Cup, in 1975. 
 
 In No Glossing Over It, lifelong Leeds United fan Gary Edwards reveals why the club has dramatically lost out on victory in many of these competitions and how it has been the victim of a pattern of serial abuse by the footballing authorities - most recently seen in the unprecedented 15-point sanction meted out at the start of the 2007-08 season. 
 
 Featuring the views of former Leeds players and managers, as well as top-flight referees and diehard fans, No Glossing Over It examines the injustices that have befallen Leeds United and sheds new light on the shocking events that have long rankled with the club's supporters.

No Glossing Over It

How Football Cheated Leeds United

Robbie Savage

Janine Self

Robbie Savage could have been just another Manchester United reject. Instead, he used the Old Trafford scrapheap as a springboard to become one of the most instantly recognisable footballers in the Premier League, despite being told by Sir Alex Ferguson he was not good enough to stay in the class of '92 alongside David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and Gary Neville. 
 
 For the last 17 years, Savage has carved out a reputation as a hard man and wind-up merchant with an unerring ability to grab a headline. From deliberately getting Tottenham's Justin Edinburgh sent off in a Wembley cup final to the 'Jobbiegate' row with referee Graham Poll and the bust-ups with John Toshack, Rio Ferdinand, Graeme Souness and Paul Jewell, the list is endless. 
 
 Yet numerous footballing legends will testify to the skill of the midfielder, who has starred for Crewe, Leicester, Birmingham, Blackburn and Derby, and won 39 international caps for Wales. Behind the long blond hair, the Armani tattoo and the flamboyant cars, Savage has always been the heartbeat of his team. 
 
 Savage! provides a unique insight into the extraordinary life of an elite sportsman, a colourful character and loving family man. Love him or loathe him, Robbie Savage's story is a remarkable one.

Savage!

The Robbie Savage Autobiography

Danny Baker

Danny Kelly

The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne. 
 
Paul Gascoigne is a legend, both on and off the pitch, and a hero to a generation of football fans. The man who, during Italia '90, made it OK to cry, and made the English fall in love with football all over again. Despite endless books about him he is still an enigma to most, so who better than his closest confident (and national institution himself), Danny Baker, to explain what truly makes him tick. 
 
This digital bite has been extracted from Danny Baker and Danny Kelly's brilliant book Classic Football Debates.

How to Understand Paul Gascoigne

Lives Less Ordinary

Anthony Clavane

This is a book about football. It's about unconditional love for a club, even when it doesn't always seem to love you back. But it is also a book about much more than that. 
 
Anthony Clavane loves Leeds - certainly the football club, but also the city, and the tribes that make it. Now that he is an exile in the South, his frequent pilgrimages to the stadium speak for themselves. But he no less loves the rarely-glimpsed back-streets of his youth; and even has a feel for the long-gone slums where his ancestors once settled. Leeds is his promised land; idealised and unreachable, yet still it defines him. 
 
'Sports writing at its very best' Daily Telegraph

Promised Land

A Northern Love Story

Those who have been football supporters all their lives can never forget the first match they ever saw, although they might not recall the result. This is because it is the players that stay in the memory and the magic moments they provided for millions of spectators in their time.Every generation throws up its own football field magicians and The Scottish Football Hall of Fame encapsulates the Saturday afternoon spell cast by fine footballers for ordinary working men who lived to cheer on their heroes every week. Fervour was passed down from father to son, and in this way the future of the clubs as well as the fame of a few golden greats was guaranteed. Players like R.S.McColl (Queen's Park), Bobby Walker (Hearts), Alan Morton (Rangers), Denis Law (Manchester United) and Kenny Dalglish (Celtic) are in this pantheon, and they span the arc of Scottish football from its earliest days till modern times. These, and more than a hundred like them, are the men you will read about in these pages. Men who were once household names are captured here in their sporting immortality and introduced to generations of football enthusiasts who never saw them play. The Scottish Football Hall of Fame gives a unique overview of the beautiful game, where by means of illuminating narrative and anecdote, legend can unite with historical fact to honour not only the wearers of the famous dark blue shirt but every foot-soldier in the Tartan Army who has ever shouted 'Scotland! Scotland!' from the terraces.

A Scottish Football Hall of Fame

Derek Dohren

Ghost on the Wall is the official biography of one of Liverpool Football Club's greatest ever servants: Roy Evans. Born in Bootle in 1948, Evans attracted the attention of many First Division club managers while playing for England's schoolboys team in the early 1960s. In 1964, legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly stepped in to sign him. But while the '60s were an exciting time to play for Liverpool, they were also very challenging, and Evans found it hard to break into the first team on a regular basis. 
 
Following Shankly's shock resignation in 1974, Evans was given the opportunity to become a member of the backroom staff. It was here that he really made his mark, taking the reserve team to seven Central League titles in nine years and coming of age as a coach and trainer, emerging as an invaluable member of the legendary 'Boot Room'. 
 
The decline in the club's fortunes during the 1980s meant that the resignation of manager Graeme Souness in 1994 left the incoming manager facing an exciting challenge - to return the club to its glory days. Roy Evans, 'the last of the Shankly lads', was handed his date with destiny. 
 
While the Reds did not win another League Championship under Evans' charge, neither did they finish any lower than fourth, and Evans' commitment to developing future Liverpool stars such as Robbie Fowler, Steve McManaman and Michael Owen ensured that he would not become another 'ghost on the wall' at Anfield. 
 
In this engrossing account, Evans reveals the inside story of life as a member of Liverpool's famous Boot Room. He recollects his close working relationships with Reds legends from Shankly to Houllier and provides a vivid portrait of operations at the celebrated club over four action-packed decades. 
 
Finally, he discusses the challenges he faces in his new role as assistant manager of the Welsh national side and considers the way forward for Liverpool after their Champions League victory under Rafael Benítez in 2005.

Ghost on the Wall

The Authorised Biography of Roy Evans

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

Mark Chapman

Alice bands, orange bladed boots and socks worn over the knee. Mansions in Cheshire, WAGs and written-off Ferraris. Referees with headsets, fourth officials, and an incomprehensible amount of stoppage time. 
 
There is only so much a true football fan can take, and in Heroes, Hairbands and Hissy Fits, Mark Chapman (aka Chappers) gives full vent to his feelings, as only the host of a football phone-in can. Football phone-ins are on the hitlist too, by the way. It is football as we know it, told from the heart. 
 
With his trademark down-to-earth wit, he takes aim at everyone from Sepp Blatter to MOTD, kit designers and replica shirt wearers (don't put your age on the back of the shirt, lads), trophy presentations and tournament draws. From his first footballing memory to watching his son grow up idolising Premier League millionaires, Chappers' book is a timely tirade as well as a love song to the beautiful game.

Heroes, Hairbands and Hissy Fits

Chappers' modern history of football

Roger Hermiston

Don Revie and Brian Clough were born a brisk walk away from each other in Middlesbrough, in 1927 and 1935 respectively. They were brought up in a town ravaged by the Depression and went on to become highly successful professional footballers. Then, as young managers, they both took clubs languishing in the doldrums (Leeds United and Derby County) and moulded them into championship winners. 
 
Despite the myriad similarities, these two sons of the Tees were as different in character as Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. A bitter rivalry developed between them, which in turn enlivened and then blighted English football in the 1960s and '70s. 
 
In Clough and Revie, exclusive interviews with players, relatives and friends shed fresh light on these two intriguing characters. Part footballing chronicle, part social history, the book is a revelatory exploration of the rivalry between the two men. It brings a fresh perspective on their early years in the North-East, tells how they nearly became teammates and explains why the feud began and what its repercussions were.

Clough and Revie

The Rivals Who Changed the Face of English Football

John Scally

As former England striker and television pundit Jimmy Greaves famously said, football is 'a funny old game'. In A Load of Balls: Football's Funny Side, John Scally confirms the truth of his statement by providing a potpourri of double entendres, timeless quips and amusing anecdotes from the tongues of football's elite. 
 
Hundreds of silly stories and priceless nuggets have been sourced to recreate the unique excitement, drama and unpredictability of football in the words of the sport's practitioners. The result is a wry, quirky and sometimes outlandish catalogue of comic creations. For lovers of the absurd, outrageous and totally bizarre, this selection of stories and quotes will amuse and delight. 
 
Packed with priceless gaffes from the likes of David Beckham ('My parents have been there for me since I was about seven'), Bobby Robson ('We didn't underestimate them; they were just a lot better than we thought') and Paul Gascoigne ('I've never made any predictions about anything and I never will'), this hilarious collection is guaranteed to tickle the funny bone of even the most casual sports fan.

A Load of Balls

Football's Funny Side

Kirk Blows

Ben Sharratt

West Ham United last won a major trophy in 1980, but the roller-coaster ride of the past three decades has produced enough twists and turns, heroes and villains and contrasting emotions to grace the script of the most thrilling TV soap opera. 
 
Since Trevor Brooking headed home the FA Cup final winner against Arsenal, the Hammers have experienced delight and despair in not so equal measure, with a cast of controversial characters - either adored or abhorred - playing the key roles in a tale of fact rather than fiction. 
 
The saving of the club by David Sullivan and David Gold, as West Ham stared into the financial abyss following the ill-fated Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson reign, is the latest chapter in a saga that includes numerous promotions and relegations, great escapes, contentious changes of ownership and management, internal feuds, bust-ups and power struggles, the Carlos Tevez affair and the passing of legends Ron Greenwood, John Lyall and Bobby Moore, as well as several false dawns in the endless quest for success. 
 
Including exclusive interviews with key protoganists, Bring Me the Head of Trevor Brooking tells - for the very first time - the inside story behind 60 of the most significant developments at Upton Park in the modern era. Whether examining the contributions of Paolo Di Canio, Harry Redknapp and Frank McAvennie or Gianfranco Zola, Marco Boogers and Iain Dowie, the book celebrates the good, the bad and the ugly of West Ham United.

Bring Me the Head of Trevor Brooking

Three Decades of East End Soap Opera at West Ham United

Alan Curtis

Tim Johnson

Stuart Sprake

Welsh footballer Alan Curtis is synonymous with Swansea City, having played for the club during three different spells, but he also played for Leeds United, Southampton and Cardiff City, and won thirty-five caps for his country during an action-packed playing career that spanned two decades. 
 
Alan experienced the highs of the game at the top level with Swansea during their meteoric rise through all four divisions to reach the top flight, but this success came after he'd experienced the low of the Swans having to apply for re-election to the Football League in 1975. 
 
In this eventful autobiography, Alan recounts the topsy-turvy turns his career has taken, including a disappointing spell at Leeds United in 1979-80. He was the club's most expensive signing ever at the time, but a nasty clash with Peter Shilton left him sidelined for nine months. Determined to prove his critics wrong and overcome his injury, he played some of the best football of his career upon returning to Swansea, before moving to Southampton in 1983 to help the club challenge the Merseyside dominance of the time. 
 
Since his playing career wound down in 1987, Alan has remained in the game as a coach with both Swansea City and Wales, giving back to the game the wisdom and experience he garnered during his years as a player. In Curt, Alan reflects upon his colourful career, highlights just how much the beautiful game has changed since his playing days and explains why he's living proof that nice guys don't always finish second.

Curt

The Alan Curtis Story

Crumpled, slapdash and foul-mouthed as ever, Detective Inspector Jack Frost struggles to cope with inadequate back-up and never enough time; the unsolved crimes pile up and the vicious killings go on. Frost must cut corners and take risks as he staggers from crisis to crisis, rapists to murderers, missing bodies to discovered body parts; will he be able to keep Denton safe?

DI Jack Frost

Prepare to be gripped by this prequel series to R.D. Wingfield's A Touch of Frost. 
 
Back in Denton, Detective Sergeant Jack Frost returns to investigating murders, finding missing children, and discovering dead bodies in woodland areas. With Detective Inspector Williams missing, and a new policeman, DS Waters, to mentor, DS Jack Frost has to put the stresses and straings of his personal life on hold in order to keep Denton safe.

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