Aidan Smith

Aidan Storey

Aidan Trimble is the Chief Instructor to the Federation of Shotokan Karate and a former British, European and World Karate Champion, winning the world title in Tokyo - the home of Karate. Aidan has trained with some of the world's leading teachers of 'traditional' and 'sport' karate and is now an award-winning instructor and teacher who is in demand throughout the world. He can be contacted via www.fsk-karate.com.

Aidan Trimble

Aiden Aslin is a British-born resident of Ukraine. Living in Mykolaiv with his fiancé, he joined the Ukrainian marines in 2018 and was called to the frontline ahead of the Russian invasion in February 2022. He was one of over a thousand soldiers who surrendered after the month-long siege at the Mariupol steelworks, whereupon he was singled out for his British passport. His surrender, captivity, treatment and subsequent release received global media attention.

Aiden Aslin

Aiko Bethea is the founder of RARE Coaching &amp; Consulting, a leadership development company that helps aspiring leaders successfully navigate the workplace with more impactful approaches to leadership. She has worked with Fortune 100 companies, research &amp; academic institutes, and global non-profit organisations. Bethea is also Senior Leadership Consultant for the Brené Brown Education &amp; Research Group and was named by Forbes as a leading anti-racism educator. Bethea was a contributing writer in the New York Times bestselling anthology You Are Your Best Thing (2021). Anchored, Aligned, Accountable is her first book.

Aiko Bethea

Ailie Busby

Ailsa McFarlane was born in 1997 in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in Snowdonia in the United Kingdom. After leaving school, she studied veterinary science before dropping out to travel the United States and Europe by road. Highway Blue is her first novel.

Ailsa McFarlane

Aimee Bender is the author of the novels The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, a New York Times bestseller, and An Invisible Sign of My Own; and of the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Willful Creatures and The Color Master. Her work has been widely anthologised and has been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

Aimee Bender

Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was a Martinican poet and politician who played a leading role in the struggle to liberate the French colonies of Africa and the Caribbean. Renowned for co-founding the Négritude movement, Césaire was a pioneer in surrealist poetry. His achievements as a writer were recognised worldwide with awards including the International Nâzim Hikmet Poetry Award, the Laporte Prize, the Viareggio-Versilia Prize for Literature, and the Grand Prix National de Poésie; in 2002, he was made Commander of the Order of Merit of Cote d'Ivoire. His works include the plays A Tempest (1969) and A Season in the Congo (1966), the searing political essay Discourse on Colonialism (1956), and the long poem Return to My Native Land (1950), dubbed "nothing less than the greatest lyrical monument of this time" (Andre Breton).

Aimé Césaire

Aingeala Flannery

Aingelda Ardizzone

Ainsley Harriott is nothing short of a cookery legend; a pioneer in quick and easy home cooking, he has hosted some of the UK's most popular culinary series. His love of food and people, together with his natural curiosity and accessible recipes, make him a much-loved British TV personality. Recent popular ITV shows include Ainsley's Caribbean Kitchen, Ainsley Mediterranean Cookbook, Ainsley's Food We Love and now Ainsley's Good Mood Food.

Ainsley Harriott

Air Fryer UK

Aishling Morgan

Aisling Bea

Aisling Fitzsimons

Aislinn Hunter is the author of a novel, Stay; a collection of stories, What's Left Us; and two collections of poetry, Into the Early Hours and The Possible Past. The World Before Us is her first book of fiction in twelve years. After travelling to London and Edinburgh over the past few years to study for a PhD, Aislinn Hunter now lives and teaches in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Aislinn Hunter

Aiste Gazdar

Ajahn Sumedho

Ajay Chowdhury, the inaugural winner of the Harvill Secker-Bloody Scotland prize, is a tech entrepreneur and theatre director. His children’s book – Ayesha and the Firefish, was published in 2016 and adapted into a musical which premiered in San Francisco. 
 
 
The Waiter (Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month), was published in 2021, and is the first in his critically-acclaimed crime series about Detective Kamil Rahman, an ex-policeman from Kolkata who has moved to Brick Lane in London. It is being adapted for television by Moonage Pictures.The Cook (Guardian Top Crime Books of the Year) was published in May 2022 to excellent reviews and deals with the issue of homelessness. The third book in the series – The Detective (Sunday Times Top Crime Books of the Year) – is about government surveillance and AI. The Spy (Longlisted Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing), the fourth book, sees Kamil infiltrate a terrorist cell. The Shadow (A Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month) is the latest book in the series.

Ajay Chowdhury

Ajaz Ahmed is the CEO of AKQA, the ideas and innovation company he founded aged 21. AKQA today employs over 1,500 people in 15 offices around the world. In 2014 AKQA won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation. Ajaz co-authored Velocity: The Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital. For essays and thoughts visit http://www.akqa.com/ajaz.

Ajaz Ahmed

Akasha Moon is a professional Tarot reader, medium and vocational healer. Under her other pen name Kala Trobe, she has published Invoke the Goddess and Invoke the Gods with Llewellyn. She's passionate about her subject and believes that, although it can bring about some serious benefits, magic can be a lot of fun.

Akasha Moon

Akiyuki Nosaka (1930-2015) was a novelist, singer, lyricist and former member of the House of Councillors in Japan. Born in Kamakura, Kanagawa, his memories of living through the Second World War – including the loss of his adoptive father in the 1945 Kobe bombings – served as the inspiration for his most famous short stories. In 1967, he won the Naoki Prize for Grave of the Fireflies and American Hijiki, both based on the Japanese experience of the War. Nosaka also wrote erotic fiction, including The Pornographers (1963), and in later life he continued his career as a newspaper and TV journalist, as well as a politician and chanson singer.

Akiyuki Nosaka

Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche was an experienced meditation master of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. He was co-founder of the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre and supervised many other centres in Europe, Africa and Asia. He formed several humanitarian organisations for the aid of refugees, the distressed and the poor and was advisor to a large number of people, including therapists in the UK and Europe. He died in 2013.

Akong Tulku Rinpoche

Akshi Singh is an associate editor at Parapraxis and deputy editor at Critical Quarterly, and is the editor of a special collection of Critical Quarterly presenting new writing on Marion Milner. She collaborates regularly with the Derek Jarman lab, and writes for the London Review of Books. Singh moved to the UK from India to study for a PhD in psychoanalysis and literature with Jacqueline Rose. She is currently training to be a psychoanalyst at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research.

Akshi Singh

Al Ewing

Al Franken

Al Gore

Al Holloway

Al Murray's alter ego, The Pub Landlord, is one of the most recognizable and successful comic creations of the past twenty years, and Murray, who has won numerous awards and accolades, continues to fill arenas and theatres around the world. 
 
He is also the author of many successful books including Watching War Films with My Dad and Command, a sharply entertaining analysis of the key allied military leaders in the Second World War. He is well known for co-hosting the hugely popular Second World War history podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk with fellow bestselling military author James Holland. 
 
Arnhem: Black Tuesday is his first history book about a single campaign.

Al Murray

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Jackie Cahill

Paddy Russell

Tipperary native Paddy Russell has been one of the leading referees in the GAA for the past 30 years. His story is a remarkable one, following his rise from humble beginnings to the pinnacle of two All-Ireland finals. 
 
Inspired by the late, great John Moloney, Russell took his first steps in refereeing in 1976. He quickly emerged as a leading light and rapidly worked his way to the top of his profession. 
 
Russell has enjoyed a successful career but it is also one laced with drama, most notably that arising from the 1995 All-Ireland senior football final between Tyrone and Dublin. Russell later took charge of the tempestuous National Football League clash between Dublin and Tyrone in 2006, which became known as 'The Battle of Omagh', and the stormy showdown between Leinster rivals Dublin and Meath in April 2008. Just two months later, Russell was in charge of the Munster senior football championship tie between All-Ireland champions Kerry and Clare when Kerry captain Paul Galvin slapped the referee's notebook from his hands, earning a three-month suspension. 
 
In Final Whistle, Russell reflects on his eventful journey, including these controversial matches, and describes vividly the stresses and strains of refereeing modern-day Gaelic games.

Final Whistle

The Paddy Russell Story

Iain Duff

For more than 120 years, Rangers and Celtic have vied for supremacy in one of the world's sporting hotbeds. The rivalry between the two teams is among the fiercest anywhere in sport, making an Old Firm derby much more than a football game. Controversy is rarely far away when the Glasgow giants meet, but amid the fallout that invariably follows their contests, the actual game is often forgotten. 
 
In Follow, Follow, Iain Duff recounts the greatest footballing moments of Rangers' illustrious history in Old Firm clashes, from their very first competitive win over Celtic, in the 1893 Glasgow Cup final, through to the 1-0 victory at Ibrox that was a vital factor in Rangers' 2009-10 SPL title win. 
 
The intervening years saw famous Old Firm contributions from legendary Ibrox names such as Gillick, Meiklejohn, McPhail, Baxter, Johnston, McCoist, Cooper, Laudrup, Ferguson and Novo, all of which are revisited here, along with the goals, the flare-ups and the controversies that make these derby days simply unforgettable for every Rangers fan.

Follow, Follow

Classic Rangers Old Firm Clashes

Phil Hay

The 2007-08 season for Leeds United Football Club will have been anything but regular. At the end of the previous season, one of England's most famous football clubs was relegated to what is in effect the Third Division. Still stricken with mountains of debt accumulated under an earlier regime, the club was put into administration, then hit with a 15-point penalty for the coming season due to alleged financial irregularities. With a young manager on board and a squad of players made up of trainees, reserves and cheap buy-ins or free transfers, the future looked bleak for a club that only five years ago was challenging for the Premiership and the Champions League. 
 
But can dreams come true for their long-suffering and fiercely loyal fans? Thus far Leeds have won more games than any other team in League One and look more than likely to gain promotion at the first attempt. The club is on a roller-coaster ride to gain back its self-respect and an appetite for further glories in 2008 - so will the story run to a happy ending? 
 
Yorkshire Evening Post journalist Phil Hay has followed the team since the pre-season friendlies last summer and through their league and cup matches this season. He has interviewed players, coaching staff, board members and fans to get a true warts-and-all picture of life at Leeds United as they struggle for redemption. This is as dramatic a story of football as you will ever read.

Leeds United - From Darkness into White

The Year of Resurrection

John Hartson

In July 2009, former Celtic and Wales soccer star John Hartson was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which had also spread to his lungs and brain. But before his treatment even began, John came to the brink of death after contracting pneumonia, ceasing to breathe and undergoing emergency brain surgery. Against all the odds, he pulled through, and in Please Don't Go he documents his incredible fight for life. 
 
Profoundly moving, John's own story is interwoven with the poignant recollections of his pregnant wife, Sarah, as well as with extracts from his sister Victoria's personal diary. This remarkable book covers the five-week period during which John's survival was most in jeopardy. 
 
John's truly inspirational account of how he has managed to overcome a very aggressive form of cancer will offer hope and courage to others affected by the disease. It is a touching and ultimately uplifting insight into the bravery of the popular football hero, who has fought back to full health in the face of adversity.

Please Don't Go

Big John's Journey Back to Life

Phil Rostron

Brian Clough's forty-four-day tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974 is one of the most infamous episodes in British football history. 
 
 While the bestselling The Damned United was a fictional account of Clough's short-lived but controversial reign at the club, We Are the Damned United reveals the true story, as told by the players he managed at the time. 
 
 It includes candid contributions from legendary names such as Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray and Terry Yorath, who reveal what it was like to make the transition from the relatively smooth management style of Don Revie to a constant crossing of swords with the outspoken Clough, who left the club flailing at the foot of the league upon his premature departure. 
 
 We Are the Damned United tells it how it really was rather than how it might have been.

We Are the Damned United

The Real Story of Brian Clough at Leeds United

Kenny Macdonald

In this, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed first volume of quotations about our national sport, Kenny MacDonald delves once more into Scotland's sweaty, smelly football dressing-rooms and emerges with a batch of statements which are profond, amusing, acerbic and sometimes plain bizarre.

Scottish Football Quotations

Colin Shindler

Before the Thai millions and Abu Dhabi billions, Manchester City was always a club that attracted fierce controversy. 
 
July 1965: Manchester City are on the scrapheap, managerless and languishing in Second Division mediocrity. Desperate to reverse the club's fortunes, the board turns to Joe Mercer, a respected football veteran hungry for a final chance to achieve management glory. Yet age and ill health are against Joe: he needs an assistant, and volatile, ambitious coaching genius Malcolm Allison is his man. Recently sacked from managing Plymouth, Malcolm is out to prove that his innovative tactics can breathe new life into the staid English game. City is the perfect opportunity to show off his talents - especially since Joe promises him the manager's job in two years' time . . . 
 
July 1970: City rule supreme, having just won their fifth trophy in as many seasons. The Mercer-Allison partnership is the most successful management team in the club's history. But, unwilling to let go of his success, Joe breaks his word and refuses to step aside. In order to fulfil his self-proclaimed destiny as the greatest manager in English football, an embittered Malcolm engineers a boardroom takeover that risks everything he and Joe have worked for. 
 
Based on real events, Colin Shindler's novel explores the clash of personalities that led to the spectacular rise and fall of Manchester City's 'Golden Age'. Malcolm and Joe's story is a cautionary tale of how ambition and betrayal brought down two men who had the world at their feet and of how two of the greatest management partners in British football history became the worst of friends.

The Worst of Friends

The Betrayal of Joe Mercer

Frank McGarvey

Ronnie Esplin

During a glorious but controversial career, Frank McGarvey won every major trophy in Scottish football. Under Alex Ferguson at St Mirren in the 1970s, he inspired a young Saints team to victory in the First Division - an effort that attracted the attention of English giants Liverpool and Scotland manager Jock Stein. 
 
After a frustrating spell at Anfield, he headed back north to join boyhood heroes Celtic, with whom he won five medals in five seasons. However, he was shown the door by Davie Hay just days after scoring the winner for the club in the 1985 Scottish Cup final. 
 
McGarvey then returned to St Mirren, with whom he won the Scottish Cup two years later, and he continued his success after a move into management, helping Clyde to win the Second Division trophy. But this is only half of Frank McGarvey's story. Throughout his remarkable career and beyond, McGarvey fought and, for the most part, lost a battle with gambling, which cost him his marriage, home and self-respect. 
 
In Totally Frank, McGarvey chronicles his many highs and lows, and reveals how he finally succeeded in overcoming his gambling addiction.

Totally Frank

The Frank McGarvey Story

Darragh Ó Sé

For 16 years, Darragh Ó Sé wore the number 8 jersey for Gaelic football's most celebrated county, stoking the fires in Kerry's engine room. With six All Ireland medals, he is the most decorated footballer of the modern era. 
 
Darragh's name is synonymous with his county's unrelenting appetite for success, but throughout his illustrious career he has held his counsel, allowing his football to do the talking. Until now. 
 
This is the story of a modern Kerry icon. Uncompromising, passionate and possessing a savage wit, Darragh talks openly for the first time about his life in the green and gold, and about his constant drive to succeed. 
 
Elsewhere in the book, he details his setbacks, reflects on a family tragedy and reveals how his upbringing on the fringe of west Kerry helped shape his character, steeling him for a career in the toughest position in Gaelic football. 
 
This is the story of Darragh Ó Sé - the life of a legend.

Darragh

My Story

Graham Johnson

Who controls football in Britain today? The FA? The clubs? The fans? The shocking reality is that organised crime is moving in more aggressively than a Wayne Rooney tackle and there's little the authorities can do about it. 
 
Football and Gangsters is a revealing investigation into how organised crime has begun to take hold behind the scenes of professional football. Michael Owen, Rio Ferdinand and Robbie Fowler are just some of the sport's big names to have fallen foul of the game's godfathers and paid the price. Their alarming stories are told here. 
 
Criminal organisations have manoeuvred themselves into a position of power in football. Drug dealers launder money by buying clubs; hooligan gangs have muscled their way into the boardroom; and the influence of Asian betting rings continues to grow. Through a series of dangerous undercover investigations, along with interviews with players, club officials, police and the underworld figures responsible, the sensational evidence is laid bare in this book.

Football and Gangsters

How Organised Crime Controls the Beautiful Game

Catrine Clay

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 
 
How did one man go from Nazi Youth indoctrination to English footballing icon? 
 
Bert Trautmann is a football legend. He is famed as the Manchester City goalkeeper who broke his neck in the 1956 FA Cup final and played on. But his early life was no less extraordinary. He grew up in Nazi Germany, where first he was indoctrinated by the Hitler Youth, before fighting in World War Two in France and on the Eastern Front. 
 
 In 1945 he was captured and sent to a British POW camp where, for the first time, he understood that there could be a better way of life. He embraced England as his new home and before long became an English football hero. This is his story. 
 
 'A gripping story of an unlikely redemption through football' Sunday Times 
 
'He was the best goalkeeper I ever played against. We always said, don't look into the goal when you're trying to score against Bert. Because if you do, he'll see your eyes and read your thoughts.' Bobby Charlton

Trautmann's Journey

From Hitler Youth to FA Cup Legend

Andrew Anthony

'Score and few will remember; miss and no one will forget' 
 
Talking to some of the game's most successful players and managers, the question the book seeks to address is simple: can England overcome their fear of the penalty? 
 
The penalty shoot-out is the greatest set piece of sporting drama ever conceived. 
 
Cruel, arbitrary, tortuous and unfair, it has also presented the England football team with a new and infinitely more punishing manner in which to lose. Three times in the past decade the nation has sat on the edge of its collective sofa and watched the seemingly inevitable unfold as Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle, Gareth Southgate, Paul Ince and David Batty have selected the wrong shots in the lottery of international championship shoot-outs. 
 
Except it's not a lottery. There is an art to scoring penalties, which calls upon a unique combination of physical prowess and psychological strength. In the corridor of truth that leads from the penalty spot to the goal-line, a succession of English footballers have had to confront not only the opposing goalkeeper but the hopes and dreams of fans and fellow countrymen and, of course, themselves. 
 
'A tour de force of narrative journalism' Observer

On Penalties

Tom English

Shortlised for the 2022 SBA Best Sports Book of the 21st Century prize 
 
The gripping inside story of when an England-Scotland rugby match become more than a game 
 
Murrayfield, the Calcutta Cup, March 1990. England vs. Scotland - winner-takes-all for the Five Nations Grand Slam, the biggest prize in northern hemisphere rugby. 
 
Will Carling's England are the very embodiment of Margaret Thatcher's Britain - snarling, brutish and all-conquering. Scotland are the underdogs - second-class citizens from a land that's become the testing ground for the most unpopular tax in living memory: Thatcher's Poll Tax. In Edinburgh, nationalism is rising high - what happens in the stadium will resound far beyond the pitch. 
 
Told with unprecedented access to key players, coaches and supporters on both sides (Will Carling, Ian McGeechan, Brian Moore and the rest), Tom English has produced a gripping account of a titanic struggle that thrusts the reader right into the heart of the action. Game on. 
 
'A priceless read' Guardian 
'Absolutely outstanding' The Times 
'An epic tale' Daily Telegraph 
'Gripping' Scottish Review of Books

The Grudge

Two Nations, One Match, No Holds Barred

Scotland vs. England, 1990

Peter Storey

True Storey is the compelling autobiography of notorious 1970s football legend Peter Storey, dubbed 'the bastard's bastard', who gained a reputation for ultra-violence on the pitch and had a capacity to find even greater trouble off it - a fact borne out by a string of criminal convictions and several jail sentences. 
 
 A key member, as their midfield enforcer, of the resilient Arsenal team that won the European Fairs Cup followed by the cherished Double in 1970-71, Storey was a confirmed ladies' man who loved a drink. In the mid-'70s, Storey's pub, the Jolly Farmers in Islington, became a magnet for north London villains and he rubbed shoulders with Great Train Robber Tommy Wisbey and Howard 'Mr Nice' Marks, Britain's biggest drug smuggler. 
 
 Storey talks candidly about the crimes he committed and the spells in prison that blighted his life. He reveals the truth about his feud with George Best and relays an astonishing account of how Bertie Mee tried to make him miss the 1971 FA Cup final against Bill Shankly's Liverpool side because the Arsenal manager wanted Eddie Kelly to start instead. 
 
 Today, Peter is an elusive character but a man transformed and at ease with life. Only now does he feel the circumstances are right to set the record straight and tell his side of a remarkable True Storey.

True Storey

My Life and Crimes as a Football Hatchet Man

Mark Pougatch

***FOREWORD BY FABIO CAPELLO*** 
 
Since their first appearance in the competition in 1950, England's World Cup story has been one of broken dreams, bad luck, shock losses and penalty nightmares, with one shining exception in 1966, when they famously won the Cup after beating Germany 4-2. 
 
In Three Lions Versus the World, Mark Pougatch talks to those who have shaped England's World Cup odyssey, from Brazil 1950 when England lost to the amateurs of America, through the triumph of 1966 and the subsequent failure to retain the Cup in 1970, to the spirit-sapping quarter-final defeats in Japan 2002 and Germany 2006. 
 
Household names such as Sir Tom Finney, Don Howe, Martin Peters, Trevor Brooking, Gary Lineker, Tony Adams, Glenn Hoddle and Danny Mills share their personal recollections of playing for England both on and off the pitch in the World Cup. Some reveal how they were affected by the demands placed upon them and by the mounting pressure of expectation from the English public. Others comment candidly on the myriad controversies to befall the England squad over the years. Massive highs are recounted and crushing lows painfully recollected. The contributors are united in the pride they shared in wearing the Three Lions shirt for their country in this most special of tournaments. 
 
The players' stories and anecdotes woven around the narrative of the World Cup itself, this is an unbeatable, entertaining and enlightening journey through half a century of English World Cup action that no football fan can afford to miss.

Three Lions Versus the World

England's World Cup Stories from the Men Who Were There

Alan Hansen

Football is a game of opinions. Alan Hansen knows this only too well. In his long, distinguished career with Liverpool he faced some fierce public criticism from the media. Now the boot is on the other foot and Hansen himself earns a living as one of football's most outspoken and popular pundits. 
 
Hansen's autobiography is as uncompromising as the man himself. Looking back at fourteen victorious years at Anfield, he focuses on the highlights and the inspirational characters - Paisley, Fagan, Dalglish, Rush - who were so instrumental in building the club's international success. Then there were the disappointments, and the darker days at Heysel and Hillsborough. Hansen reflects on the impact both incidents had on his life, and on the future for spectators of British football. 
 
In 1991 Hansen retired from football. He explains his reasons for not wanting to stay in the game, revealing a surprising lack of self-confidence. If he were starting his playing career now, who are the teams he would want to play for - and those he wouldn't? Which managers and players does he respect? Why does he admire Wimbledon above all other home teams? Hansen addresses these questions and, now that clubs are becoming multi-faceted business empires, looks at the future for the game in the UK. 
 
Until a knee injury ended his playing career, Hansen was one of the most successful British soccer players of all time. He captained Liverpool to an historic double in 1986, and is the only person to have won all of the honours available at club level at least twice. A keen tactical understanding of the game has made him a favourite on BBC TV Match of the Day, Grandstand and Sportsnight. Before embarking on his professional playing career, Hansen was awarded a place at Aberdeen University to read history. He lives with his family in Merseyside.

A Matter Of Opinion

D J Taylor

In January 1929, before 20,000 spectators, Norwich City of the Third Division South went down 0-5 in the third round of the FA Cup to an amateur side composed of ex-public school boys who disdained professional tactics in favour of instinct and teamwork. Within a decade, the Corinthians, the club that for forty years had supplied the entire English national side, had all but ceased to exist. The world was changing. By the time of the last 'Gentleman vs. Players' cricket match in 1962 a whole era in English sport had come to an end. 
 
But the passing of amateur sportsmen - footballers, cricketers, golfers, tennis players - had implications beyond the playing field. A century ago 'amateur' was a compliment to someone who played a game simply for love of it. A hundred years later it is a byword for cack-handed incompetence. In this brilliant study of the patterns of sporting and cultural life, D J Taylor examines the process that led to professionalism's triumph and the long rearguard action fought by sportsmen - and literature - on amateurism's behalf. 
 
On the Corinthian Spirit has many heroes - from 'Charlie Bam', the legendary Corinthian defender, who once played a game with a broken leg, to the boys' school story hero Strickland of the Sixth, Old Etonian cricket-lover George Orwell and the 14th Norwich Cub Scout XI of the early 1970s. Drawing on his own experiences of 'amateurism', D J Taylor describes a changing moral universe with profound consequences both for sport and the world beyond it.

On The Corinthian Spirit

The Decline of Amateurism in Sport

James Dart

After a decade of successfully tackling the wide-ranging collection of football queries proposed by its readers, guardian.co.uk's dedicated battalion of sleuths continues to uncover the answers in the weekly online column 'The Knowledge'. Trawling through the archives of nerdvana, this compilation uncovers the truth behind such questions as: 
 
Has a referee ever been sent off? 
Which players have attacked their own fans? 
Did pigs once force a match to be abandoned? 
Is Paolo Maldini the greatest runner-up? 
What is the fastest ever sending-off? 
Who are the most benevolent players? 
How did Alan Hansen get his scar? 
And which is the world's greenest club? 
 
All of these posers and many, many more are answered in this second collection of the best and most bizarre questions and answers from 'The Knowledge'.

More Knowledge

Ossie Ardiles

Ossie Ardiles is one of the most iconic footballers ever to have graced the game. After winning the World Cup with Argentina in 1978, Ossie became the first foreign player to make an impact in England, paving the way for the modern era of multinational teams. and was immortalised in Chas &amp; Dave's hit record "Ossie's Dream (Spurs Are On Their Way to Wembley)". 
 
In that unforgettable 1981 FA Cup Final, the silky skills of Ossie and fellow Argentine midfielder Ricky Villa inspired Spurs to their famous victory over Man City. He also helped Spurs to retain the trophy the following year, and to win the UEFA Cup in 1984, and even found time to star in the classic football film Escape to Victory with Bobby Moore, Pelé, Michael Caine and Sylvester Stallone. 
 
Thirty years on from those glory days, Ossie has a unique perspective on the football world, through his long career both playing and in management, with the emphasis always on style and entertainment. He also talks about growing up under a military dictatorship, how he was torn between two countries owing to the outbreak of the Falklands War, which claimed the life of one of his cousins, and how that football world has changed over the decades.

Ossie's Dream

My Autobiography

Andy Goram

Iain King

This is the story of a genius with flaws. Lots of them. On the field, Andy Goram was a defiant figure between the sticks who, in many ways, defined the history-making nine-in-a-row team that brought so much success to Ibrox; off it, he careered through three divorces and a welter of lurid tabloid headlines sensationalising his hellraising antics. 
 
 In this no-holds-barred account, Goram lifts the lid on his tempestuous life in football, from the Gers' glory days to a fairy-tale chapter with his boyhood heroes: Manchester United. His life in the Old Firm is examined in depth, from the saves that broke former Celtic manager Tommy Burns's heart to a story that was buried until now: Celtic's astonishing bid to sign him. 
 
 Goram's Scotland career ended in bitterness when he walked out on the squad before France 98, and here he smashes the myths that have always surrounded his relationships with Craig Brown and Jim Leighton. 
 
 This is the inside story of the man the fans voted Rangers' greatest-ever goalkeeper. He remains a genius with flaws: a legend simply known as The Goalie.

The Goalie

Leckie Kckeown

Des McKeown started at the top in football and worked his way down. He signed for Celtic in a year when they won the League and the Scottish Cup double. They liked him. He loved them. But from the first day he kicked a ball for money, he was never going to make millions out of the game. Faced with a choice between struggling to break into the Parkhead first team and turning part-time and buliding a career as a salesman, he chose real life. Hundreds of footballers whose ambitions outstripped their abilities have made the same choice as Des McKeown. Hundreds more will one day have it forced upon them. Don't give up the day job is their story. As the priviledged few drain the game of more money, McKeown warns of the consequences for the journeymen who cling to full-time contracts hoping against hope for a slice of the pie. Don't give up the day job is a no-holes-barred account of one season in the lofe of part-time players seen through the eyes of a husband, father, salesman and left-back. (in that order) Can a man who only trains twice a week get as much out of footballing as someone who plays it for a living? Is a hobby that pays 10 per cent of household bills worth putting 90 per cent of our life into?

Don't Give Up The Day Job

A Year in the Life of a Part-Time Footballer

Ken Ferris

This is the book which landed the author in the Guinness Book of Records for his record-breaking 20,000-mile tour of every Football League Ground in England. 
 
The first edition was hugely successful and was listed by Sportspages Bookshop as one of the bestselling football books of the year. 
 
This new and enlarged edition features reports on all 93 grounds visited by the author and is a comprehensive and entertaining guide for every football fanatic.

Football Fanatic

A Record Breaking Journey Through English Football

Dean Hayes

This guide for Sheffield Wednesday fans includes information on players, managers, outstanding games and records. Everything a supporter would want to know about the club from its earliest days to the present is here. Information is in easy-to-use alphabetical order.

The Hillsborough Encyclopedia

Don Shaw

Clough's War is the story of his epic ascent and decline at Derby County, a club he took in a few short years from nowhere to the top English football and teetering on greatness in Europe, before the whole dream came tumbling down in the national spotlight with his acrimonious resignation in 1973. It is the story of his rise to national fame, his almost messianic adoration at Derby and his jealous political tussle with the chairman Sam Longson and the ultimate fall of Clough's unchecked power. Award-winning script writer and lifelong Rams fan Don Shaw, was the man who, at Clough's behest, ran the campaign to keep Clough at Derby and who found himself almost in the spotlight as much as the great man himself. It is a tale dramatised with all the power of Greek tragedy and the Machiavellian intrigue of All The President's Men, while shedding new light on the Clough legend like no other book before it.

Clough's War

Danny Baker

Danny Kelly

At last! The award-winning Baker &amp; Kelly bring you the most entertaining, radical and unreliable football book ever published. The Two Dannys argue the toss, spill the beans and chew that fat about everything and anything from the biggest questions down to stuff they have frankly invented themselves. 
 
Which club has the handsomest fans? Who is the greatest player of all time? Pele? Maradona? Puskas? Rougvie? Have foreign players helped or hindered the English game? Well, Marco Boogers, well? And who was the greatest football dad, Fred Baker or Andy Kelly? 
 
Now with even more footballing facts, myths and legends, the paperback asks (and answers) hard-hitting questions, such as, what was the greatest ever World Cup? Just how much pathetic World Cup tat can one own, Danny Kelly? And where do all those beautiful women in the crowd come from? 
 
A cornucopia of footballing fun and well-crafted wisdom that is certain to sell like beer-flavoured crisps. Baker &amp; Kelly: Sometimes right sometimes wrong - but always certain.

Classic Football Debates Settled Once and For All, Vol.1

Phil Shaw

My parents have always been there for me, ever since I was about seven - David Beckham 
 
For Tony to admit he is an alcoholic took an awful lot of bottle - Ian Wright on Tony Adams 
 
I've been playing in a golf day for a boy seriously injured in a car accident. I had to drive like a lunatic to get here - Ray Houghton, TalkSport football pundit, on why he was late on-air 
 
Reporter: What would you be if you weren't a footballer? 
Peter Crouch: A virgin. 
 
I've never been so certain about anything in my life. I want to be a coach. Or a manager. I'm not sure which - Phil Neville 
 
Footballers may not be known for their profound insights, but it seems no one in the game is above a mixed metaphor or confused cliché. From Harry Redknapp to Martin O'Neill, Patrice Evra to Jason McAteer, see the funny side of the beautiful game with this hilarious collection of verbal own goals. Packed full of hilarious quotes, quips and misfires from the biggest names in football, Tell Him He's Pele is a must for everyone with a sense of humour.

Tell Him He's Pele

The Greatest Collection of Humorous Football Quotations Ever!

John Doyle

In The World is a Ball, critic and author John Doyle travels the world in pursuit of his first love - football. In dispatches from Italy to Ireland and from Buenos Aires to Bratislava, and between encounters with crazed taxi drivers and drunken fans dressed as leprechauns or in lederhosen, Doyle celebrates the evolution of soccer as a global phenomenon. 
 
He begins his journey with the first game he saw in repressed 1960s Ireland - a match which left a lasting impression on him - and then skips through the decades to concentrate on football in the twenty-first century. Here he focuses on the World Cups of 2002 and 2006, the European Championships of 2004 and 2008, and the key games and teams involved in qualifying for the historic 2010 World Cup in South Africa. 
 
With eyewitness accounts that are both hilarious and nostalgic, The World is a Ball brilliantly weaves together travelogue, match-reporting and compelling social history. It's an insightful and thought-provoking vision of the beautiful game which for some is more a religion than a sport: where colonized nations can triumph over their colonizers, the poor are rich in the pleasure of play, and for ninety minutes, anything seems possible.

The World is a Ball

John Motson

From Ronnie Radford to Wayne Rooney, John Motson's knowledge and passion for football are unrivalled. In Motty, he shares his story for the first time and guides us through a career which has spanned forty years and over 2,000 matches. From reporting on the exploits of the giant-killing Hereford team in the 1972 FA Cup that made his name on Match of the Day, to the estimated twenty-million viewers who tuned in to his commentary on England's match with Portugal at the 2006 World Cup, Motson's time in the commentary box has delivered some unforgettable anecdotes. In dozens of fascinating behind-the-scenes stories, we hear about the greatest football matches he has watched and the greatest players and managers he has been privileged to know. Many of them are football icons; Bill Shankly, Alex Ferguson, Brian Clough, Alf Ramsey, and Matt Busby, amongst countless others. 
Motty is essential reading for anyone who has grown up with the undisputed voice of football.

Motty

Forty Years in the Commentary Box

Richard Sanders

"Footeballe is nothinge but beastlie furie and extreme violence", wrote Thomas Elyot in 1531. Nearly five hundred years later, the game may still seem furious and violent, but it has also become the most popular sport on the planet. 
 
This is the story of how the modern, professional, spectator sport of football was born in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. It's a tale of testosterone-filled public schoolboys, eccentric mill-owners and bolshy miners, and of why we play football the way we do. Who invented heading? Why do we have an offside law? And why are foreigners so much better than us at the game we invented? 
 
Based on exhaustive research, Beastly Fury picks apart the complex processes which forged the modern game, turning accepted wisdom on its head. It's a story which is strangely familiar - of grasping players, corrupt clubs and autocratic officials. It's a tale of brutality, but at times too, of surprising artistry. Above all it's a story of how football, uniquely among the sports of that era, became what it is today - the people's game.

Beastly Fury

The Strange Birth Of British Football

Lou Macari

Football has dominated Lou Macari's life. Taken on as an apprentice by Celtic in the wake of their 1967 European Cup triumph, Macari learnt his football the old-fashioned way. He quickly broke into the first team, winning Scottish league titles and Cups in both 1971 and 1972, but it was at Manchester United, following a shock transfer in January 1973, that the attacking midfielder's prowess turned him into a fans' favourite and a household name. 
 
Macari went on to score 97 goals in 401 appearances for the Red Devils, including the winner against Liverpool in the 1977 FA Cup final. He also won 24 caps for Scotland and represented his country in the infamous 1978 World Cup Finals in Argentina. After leaving United in 1984, Macari moved into management with Swindon Town. It was there that he was wrongly implicated in a betting scandal which blighted his managerial career. 
 
In his long-awaited autobiography, Lou Macari tells with typical candour of football then and of football now, of the glory days and the truth behind the scandals, and of the perils that threaten the beautiful game today. It is a story like no other.

Football, My Life

Detective D.D. Warren

Detective Elin Warner Series

Detective Harriet Blue Series

Detective Inspector Antonia Hawkins

Detective Inspector Helen Grace

Detective Kamil Rahman

Detective Konrad

Detective Luc Moncrief Series

Dexter Procter

Diary of a Submissive

The adventures of wise-cracking middle school student Greg Heffley who must somehow survive the scariest time of anyone's life: middle school. The hilarious and internationally bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diddly Squat

Dino Dad

Dino Racers

Dinosaur Train

Discworld Graphic Novel Universe

The Discworld is undoubtedly Sir Terry Pratchett's most famous creation. A universe teeming with dwarves, trolls, witches, and social and cultural issues that parallel those in our own world, all wrapped up in Pratchett's inimitable comic delivery. This iconic series will make you laugh, then make you think.

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