Michael Symmons Roberts’s fourth book of poetry, Corpus, was the winner of the 2004 Whitbread Poetry Award, and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize, and the Griffin International Prize. His sixth collection, Drysalter, was the winner of both the Forward Prize and the Costa Poetry Prize in 2013. He collaborated with Paul Farley on Edgelands (Cape/Vintage) and will do so again in The Deaths of the Poets (Cape, 2017). He has also worked many times with the composer James MacMillan. He has published two novels, and is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Michael Symmons Roberts

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Monty Roberts

'As I left the round pen, I saw the Queen, Prince Philip, and the Queen Mother rise from their seats to come down and join me . . . With a warm smile on her face the Queen put out her hand to shake mine and said, 'That was beautiful'. She said she was amazed by what had happened and how the filly has responded, and she advised me to be proud of the work I was doing.' 
___________________________________________ 
 
When Monty Roberts was thirteen years old he went off alone into the deserts of Nevada to watch mustangs in the wild. What he learned about their methods of communication changed his life forever. 
 
His horse whisperer powers may seem like magic, but his amazing "horse sense" is based on a lifetime of experience and a deep love and understanding of horses. He can take a wild, high-strung horse who has never been handled before and persuade that horse to accept a bridle, saddle, and rider in thirty minutes. 
 
In this remarkable worldwide bestseller, Roberts shares his unforgettable personal story and his exceptional insight into the silent language of horses and nonverbal communication: an understanding that applies to human relationships as well. He shows that between parent and child, employee and employer, abuser and abused, there are forms of communication far stronger than the spoken word that are accessible to all who will learn to listen. 
____________________________________________ 
 
'For anyone who care about animals - not just horses, either - it is required reading' DAILY TELEGRAPH 
 
'The horse whisperer in action . . . more exciting than his fictional counterpart' OBSERVER 
 
'Riveting and inspirational' NEW YORK TIMES 
 
'Monty Roberts is the real thing' TATLER 
 
'Wild horses should not drag you away from finding out more about Monty Roberts' INDEPENDENT 
 
'This book contains some wonderful vignettes of his adventures' THE TIMES 
 
'Absorbing . . . Roberts' story is more fascinating and profound than any told in fiction . . . the kind of life-altering book you never want to finish.' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE 
 
'A riveting read' HORSE AND HOUND

The Man Who Listens To Horses

The worldwide million-copy bestseller

Michael Calvin

From the award-winning author of NO HUNGER IN PARADISE 
 
Outside the global spotlight, footballers don't drive Aston Martins or pose for underwear ads. This is war. This is life. This is football. 
 
Michael Calvin turned up for the first day of pre-season training at Millwall FC. 333 days later, he sat among the subs at Wembley. 
 
Over the course of a season, he witnessed the intimate everyday life of a football club far from the glitz and glamour of the Premier League, and the unique characters that come together every day on the field. 
 
 These are dedicated, hard-working family men, close to their roots, 'playing for the people who hate their jobs, who'd love our lives.' 
 
 Forget about the over-hyped circus of the Premier League. This is the beautiful game in all its raucous glory: essential reading for anyone whom football is a way of life.

Family

Life, Death and Football: A Year on the Frontline with a Proper Club

Will Greenwood

Known as Shaggy to his mates, Greenwood is one of rugby's and international sport's most engaging, intelligent, outspoken and witty characters. A Lancastrian to the tips of this size 12 boots, the giant centre has been an automatic choice in the England XV since his debut against Australia in 1997. 
 
A few months earlier he looked set to become only the third uncapped Englishman to play for the British Lions when he came within a whisker of losing his life after he was speared to the ground in a heavy tackle, lost consciousness and swallowed his tongue. 
 
After taking several months to recover he quickly made an impact at international level following a widespread clamour in the press for his call-up to the England side. An elegant riposte to the old jibe that England rugby players lack guile and imagination, the Harlequins' and former Leicester centre has brought a shimmering, magical quality to his team's back play, opening up defences with clever angled running, superb distribution and a gravity-defying ability to stay up in the tackle. 
 
Greenwood also featured in England's doomed Rugby World Cup campaign in 1999 before playing a central role in the team's dramatic triumph in Australia four years later. 
 
His life off the pitch has been no less eventful, he and his wife Caro having experienced extreme despair and joy in recent years with the loss of one son, Freddie, and the birth of another, Archie.

Will

The Autobiography of Will Greenwood

'For those of you missing your football fix, anything by Michael Calvin is worth a read – the hugely respected sports journalist writes eloquently about the modern game in page turner State of Play.' 
DAILY MIRROR 
 
_______________________________________________________ 
 
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 
 
Award-winning author of The Nowhere Men, Living on the Volcano and No Hunger in Paradise returns with his magnum opus on the state of modern football 
 
First he revealed the extraordinary lives of football scouts in The Nowhere Men. 
 
Next he unearthed the pressures on football managers in Living on the Volcano. 
 
Then he chronicled the hardships of young players striving to make it in No Hunger in Paradise. 
 
 
Now in State of Play, in what marks the pinnacle of a career investigating the human stories of football, award-winning writer Michael Calvin turns his eye to the biggest story of all - the game itself. 
 
 
From mental health to money, concussion to Champions league, fan-owners to oligarchs, women's football to world cups, Calvin gets under the skin of the beautiful game, and reveals why it is truly the game of our lives. 
 
 
Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with leading figures around the world, from Arsene Wenger to Steven Gerrard, Calvin reveals the winners, the losers, the politics, the pleasure, the hope, and the despair of the world's most popular sport.

State of Play

Under the Skin of the Modern Game

Winner of The Times British Sports Book Award 2014. 
 
A fascinating insight into the enclosed world of football scouts in the UK 
 
A teenaged boy plays football in a suburban park. His name is Raheem Sterling. The call is made: “Get down here quick. This is something special”. 
 
Another boy is 8, going on 28. His name is Jack Wilshere. The referee, an Arsenal scout, spirits him away from Luton Town. 
 
A young goalkeeper struggles on loan at Cheltenham Town in League Two. His name is Jack Butland. Within months he will be playing for England. 
 
Welcome to football’s hidden tribe. Scouts are everywhere yet nowhere, faceless and nameless, despite making the informed decisions worth millions. Award-winning sportswriter Michael Calvin opens up their hidden world, examining their disconnected lifestyles, petty betrayals and unconsidered professionalism of men who spend long, lonely hours on the road.

The Nowhere Men

Shortlisted for the British Sports Book Awards 2018 
 
“What’s your dream, son?” 
 
A six year-old boy, head bowed, mumbles the eternal answer: “Be a footballer….” Steadman Scott, football’s most unlikely talent scout, smiles indulgently, and takes him in from the street. He knows the odds. Only 180 of the 1.5 million boys who play organised youth football in England will become a Premier League pro. That’s a success rate of 0.012 per cent. 
 
How and why do the favoured few make it? What separates the good from the great? Who should they trust – the coach, the agent or their parents? 
 
Michael Calvin provides the answers on a journey from non-league grounds to hermetically sealed Premier League palaces, via gang-controlled sink estates and the England team’s inner sanctum. He interviews decision makers, behavioural specialists, football agents and leading coaches. He shares the hopes and fears of players and their parents. He exposes bullying and a black economy in which children are commodities, but remains true to the dream.

No Hunger In Paradise

The Players. The Journey. The Dream

James Patterson

Travis McKinley's golfing career is over. 
 
After a string of poor performances he crashes out of the US Senior Tour and faces a future of watching the game he loves from the sidelines. 
 
In a bid to escape, Travis decides to take his family on a long-awaited trip to the UK – a pilgrimage to the world-renowned golf courses of Scotland. Travis dreams of treading the hallowed fairways of St Andrews, where the game began. 
 
But when an opportunity to play in the Scottish Open unexpectedly presents itself, Travis can't believe his luck. 
 
Could he have one last shot at the big time on the most famous course of all?

Miracle at St Andrews

Stephen Venables

High and wild places have dominated Stephen Venables' life and now he has written a full autobiography which explores how and - more importantly - why he became a mountaineer, and reveals a series of never-recorded adventures on four continents. At its climax he revisits his dramatic success without oxygen on the Kangshung Face of Everest, described by Reinhold Messner as the most adventurous in Everest's history and by Lord Hunt as 'one of the most remarkable ordeals from which men or women have returned alive'. As Venables writes: 'Although we didn't go seeking deliberately an epic near-death experience, it did turn out that way - the ultimate endurance test for which all the previous adventures seemed, retrospectively, to be a preparation.'

Higher Than The Eagle Soars

A Path to Everest

Bill Buford

___________________________ 
THE BESTSELLING ACCOUNT OF FOOTBALL VIOLENCE 
 
Welcome to the world of football thuggery. 
 
They have names like Bonehead, Paraffin Pete and Steamin’ Sammy. They like lager, football, the Queen, and themselves. They love England. They dislike the rest of the known universe. 
 
The beautiful game remains ugly. 
 
From following Manchster's Red Army to drinking with skinheads, acclaimed writer Bill Buford enters this alternate society and records both its savageries and its sinister allure with the social imagination of George Orwell and the raw personal engagement of Hunter S. Thompson. 
 
Among the Thugs is a terrifying, malevolently funny, supremely chilling book about the experience, and the eerie allure, of crowd violence and football culture.

Among The Thugs

Matt Dickinson

It seemed like any other season on Mount Everest. Ten expeditions from around the world were preparing for their summit push, gathered together to try for mountaineering's ultimate prize. Twenty-four hours later, eight of those climbers were dead, victims of the most devastating storm ever to hit Everest. On the North face of the mountain, a British expedition found itself in the thick of the drama. Against all odds, film-maker Matt Dickinson and professional climber Alan Hinkes managed to battle through hurricane-force winds to reach the summit. In Death Zone, Matt Dickinson describes the extraordinary event that put the disaster on the front cover of Time and Newsweek. The desperate attempts of teams on the southern side of the mountain, fatal errors that led to the deaths of three Indian climbers on the North Ridge and the moving story of Rob Hall, the New Zealand guide who stayed with his stricken client, and paid with his life. Based on interviews with the surviving climbers and the first-hand experience of having lived through the killer storm, this gripping non-fiction book tackles issues at the very heart of mountaineering. Death Zone is an extraordinary story of human triumph, folly and disaster.

Death Zone

Maria Coffey

Climbers who court danger in the world's highest places risk far more than just their own skins. When tragedy strikes, what happens to the people who love them? Why would anyone choose to invest in a future with a high-altitude climber? What is life like in the shadow of the mountain? Such questions have long been taboo within the international world of mountaineering. Now Maria Coffey breaks this silence. She recounts climbers' stories of near-death experiences, and gives a voice to the families and loved ones of Chris Bonington, Ed Viesturs, Anatoli Boukreev and Alex Lowe, amongst many other famous names. Her riveting narrative weaves tales of adventure with first-person accounts of the people left behind, highlighting the conflicting beauty, passion and devastation of this alluring obsession.

Where The Mountain Casts Its Shadow

The Personal Costs of Climbing

Andy Cave

At the age of sixteen, Andy Cave followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps and became a miner - one of the last recruits into a dying world. Every day he would descend 3,000 feet into Grimethorpe pit. 
But at weekends Andy escaped from the pithead to a very different world - testing his nerve on the cliffs and mountains around Britain, and forging endearing friendships with his new companions. 
Enduring the 1984-5 miners' strike - the guilt, the broken friendships, the poverty - Andy continued to indulge his passion. In 1986, after much soul searching, he quit his job as a miner in order to devote himself to mountaineering. At the same time he decided to educate himself, acquiring almost from a standing start academic qualifications including a PhD in socio-linguistics. This extraordinary twin odyssey is graphically recalled in this remarkable book. 
In the Himalaya in 1997 Andy achieved a courageous first ascent on one of the steepest and most difficult summits in the world - the North Face of Changabang. Seventeen days later, he and only two of his team-mates crawled into base camp, frostbitten, emaciated and traumatised. His account of this terrifying experience provides a dramatic climax to this compelling story.

Learning To Breathe

Amy Lawrence

‘Isn’t it lovely to have moments in your life where you think, oh, nothing can beat that. Nothing.’ George Graham 
 
Anfield, May 26th 1989. The final day of the Division One season. An iconic underdog story. 
 
Set against the backdrop of Hillsborough disaster, and during an emotional era in football long before the Premier League as we now know it, 89 is an oral history of a sporting moment so unusual it felt instantly historic. 
 
 Drawing on years of research, writer Amy Lawrence brings together fascinating and never-before seen testimony from the voices who were there, on the pitch, off it, and beyond. 
 
 89 creates a definitive and kaleidoscopic portrait of a match that changed English football forever. 
 
‘Once it hits the net I’m just thinking ecstasy really. It’s incredible. I’ve done what I wanted to do. That’s that feeling. I’ve done it.’ Michael Thomas

Arsenal’s Greatest Moment, Told in Our Own Words

Together with Chris Bonington and other distinguished British climbers, Stephen Venables was high on the unclimbed and sacred mountain of Panch Chuli when, at 1am on a dark Himalayan night, his abseil failed and he fell catastrophically, somersaulting from rock to rock and landing, seriously-wounded, at the end of a rope suspended above a 50-degree icefield. This is the story of his arduous and almost miraculous survival, and of the brilliant, committed teamwork which brought him to safety.

A Slender Thread

Escaping Disaster in the Himalaya

In 1997, Andy Cave returned from the Himalayas, having climbed the stupendous north face of Changabang but losing his friend and climbing partner in the process. Traumatized by the savage ordeal, he must examine his relationship with the mountains that have defined his life so far. Will he have the courage to undertake such a challenge again? Does he want to? Thin White Line charts his struggle towards finding an answer. It is as much a journey into the mind of an extreme mountaineer as it is into the wild landscapes through which he travels. 
 
In a nail biting narrative set in Patagonia, Norway and Alaska, Cave tackles the severest challenges modern Alpinism can pose. Juxtaposed with the stark beauty of the environment are the colourful characters populating his stories, from the adventurers around him, past and present, to the pioneer aviators who get him and his kind to those impossibly remote places. He vividly recreates the joy and despair of climbing, building the book to a desperate finale that lays bare the fragility of our carefully constructed convictions.

Thin White Line

Pat Conroy

In 1954, in Orlando, Florida, nine-year-old Pat Conroy discovered the game of basketball. Orlando was another new hometown for a military kid who had spent his life transferring from one home to another; he was yet again among strangers, still looking for his first Florida friends, but when the 'new kid' got his hands on the ball near the foul line of that unfamiliar court, the course of his life changed dramatically. From that moment until he was twenty-one, the future author defined himself through the game of basketball. In My Losing Season, Conroy takes the reader through his last year playing basketball, as point guard and captain of The Citadel Bulldogs, flashing back constantly to the drama of his coming of age, presenting all the conflict and love that have been at the core of his novels. He vividly re-creates his senior year at that now-famous military college in Charleston, South Carolina, but also tells the story of his heartbreaking childhood and of the wonderful series of events that conspired to rescue his spirit. With poignancy and humour Conroy reveals the inspirations behind his unforgettable characters, pinpoints the emotions that shaped his own character as a young boy, and ultimately recaptures his passage from athlete to writer.

My Losing Season

Mark Wallington

Travels with Boogie is the story of two city slickers - one an unattractive but streetwise mongrel from Stockwell, the other the long-suffering author - and how they came to terms with England's countryside and waterways. 
 
First they had to survive against all odds as they embarked on a heroic journey up hill and down dale, with rucksacks full of Kennomeat, along Britain's longest coastal footpath - from Somerset to Devon, from Cornwall to Dorset. And they did it. Then, undaunted, they took on the treacherous waters of the Thames. Not exactly as Mark had planned, however: this time his companion was to be the delectable Jennifer - but she was held up at the office, and when Boogie was dropped off at the kennels the other dogs complained. 
 
Travels with Boogie is a witty and fascinating account of a mismatched couple and of the people they meet and places they visit.

Travels With Boogie

500 Mile Walkies and Boogie Up the River in One Volume

Gary Lineker

***Includes a new foreword by Gary Lineker about football in lockdown*** 
 
Shortlisted for The Telegraph Sports Book Awards 
 
'Lineker is nearly as good a presenter as I was a footballer' DIEGO MARADONA 
'Hilarious, almost as funny as me' ALAN SHEARER 
'This is Lineker unleashed. As a non-football nut I didn't expect to enjoy it, but between laddish anecdotes are passages of sudden tenderness. . . Lineker opens up, dislodging memories and reflections, not just about football but his whole life.' THE TIMES 
_______________________________________________________________ 
'Football is a simple game. 22 players chase a ball for 90 minutes, and at the end the Germans always win.' 
 
This book is inspired by the stories Danny and I have shared with each other about what life in football is really like: in the dressing room, in the commentary box, on the pitch and - with the appropriate pixellation - in the showers afterwards. 
 
What's it really like to play with Messi? I wouldn't know, but I have starred alongside him in an advert for Walkers crisps. And, well, his performance was world-class. 
 
And what is a life in football really like? You won't learn much from the dull-as-dishwater post-match interviews - it's a world of secrets, superstitions, laughs and personalities, and let me tell you, half of it you won't believe. 
 
I've looked back at my playing days, from England to Leicester, Everton to Barcelona, Tottenham to, er, Nagoya Grampus Eight, and shared the chaotic behind-the-scenes secrets of Match of the Day - and Danny has chipped in with stories from a lifetime following the game as a fan. 
 
From Italia '90 to Leicester's Premier League fairytale, from yellow cards to World Cup trophies (I've never been awarded either), from Gascoigne to Maradona, you'll find it all here - everything you always wanted to know about football, but didn't realise that you did. 
 
Inspired by the No.1 podcast Behind Closed Doors

Life, Laughs and Football

Jim Perrin

Using unpublished diaries, Jim Perrin, the acclaimed author of The Villain and Menlove, tells the story of the greatest exploring partnership in British history. In the 1930s Tilman and the younger Shipton pioneered many routes in Africa and the Himalayas and found the key to unlocking Everest. They crossed Africa by bicycle, explored China with Spender and Auden, journeyed down the Oxus River to its source and, with no support, opened up much of the Nepalese Himalaya. In the words of Jim Perrin, 'The journeys of discovery undertaken through two decades by this pair of venturesome ragamuffins are unparallelled in the annals of mountain exploration.' 
 
Jim Perrin writes of his source-material: 'These unpublished diaries, journals, and extensive correspondence have not previously been used to present a portrait of the most productive friendship in the history of mountain exploration. What they reveal is, in Shipton's phrase, "a random harvest of delight" gathered by two uniquely bold and engaging characters from the great mountain ranges of the world during the golden era of their first western exploration. Between geographical excitement, the nature of arduous travel in difficult and uncharted terrain throughout a lost epoch, and the quirkiest and most stimulating of friendships, the theme is a gift, and one that has long been waiting for adequate treatment'.

Shipton and Tilman

Franklin Foer

What in the world has the power to liberate women in Iran while provoking antagonism between Catholics and Protestants in Scotland, to lure Nigerians to the cold of the Ukraine while heating up class warfare in the US heartlands, and both profit local gangsters and create local - and international - celebrities? 
 
Foer presents an unexpected, uniquely revealing tour of the politics and culture of football from Milan to Tehran. He examines the game's role in sustaining ancient hatreds and rivalries (Serbia's Red Star and Croatia's Dinamo); in supporting the migration of players and the rise of the football oligarchs (such as Silvio Berlusconi, President of AC Milan - and of Italy); and in defending the virtues and vices of old-fashioned nationalism. As Foer brilliantly illuminates, the Balkan War, anti-Semitism, Jewish identity, racism, social integration, media manipulation, and American patriotism have all been influenced by, as well as have had a dramatic effect on, football. 
 
On his travels, Foer encounters a collection of fans that is stranger than fiction: from a British hooligan with a Jewish mother, a Nazi father and a career as a soldier of fortune, to a fan club in Serbia that turns into a brutal anti-Muslim paramilitary unit. The result is an unforgettable parade of uniquely memorable fans - each set into his - or her - unique political and cultural context.

How Football Explains The World

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2015* 
 
A man punches the wall in a strategic show of anger. Another complains he has become a stranger to those he loves. A third relies on “my three a day: coffee, Nurofen and a bottle of wine.” Yet another admits he is an oddity, who would prefer to be working in cricket. A fifth describes his professional life as “a circus”. These are football managers, live and uncut. Arsene Wenger likens the job to “living on a volcano: any day may be your last”. He speaks with the authority of being the longest serving manager in the English game, having been at Arsenal for 17 years. The average lifespan of a Football League manager is 17 months. Fifty three managers, across all four Divisions, were sacked, or resigned, in the 2012-13 season. There were fifty seven managerial changes in the 2013-14 season. What makes these men tick? They are familiar figures, who rarely offer anything more than a glimpse into their personal and professional lives. What shapes them? How and why do they do their job? Award-winning writer Michael Calvin provides the answers. 
 
Insecurity is a unifying factor, but managers at different levels face different sets of problems. Depending on their status, they are dealing with multi-millionaires, or mortgage slaves. Living on the Volcano charts the progress of more than 20 managers, in different circumstances and in different phases of their career. Some, like Brendan Rodgers and Roberto Martinez, are at the peak of their profession. Others, like Chris Hughton, Brian McDermott and Gary Waddock, have been sacked, and are seeking a way back into the game. They offer a unique insight into a trade which is prone to superficial judgement and savage swings in fortune. Management requires ruthlessness and empathy, idealism and cunning. Stories overlap, experiences intermingle, and myths are exposed.

Living on the Volcano

The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager

John Grisham

Glory never dies. 
 
 Neely Crenshaw was the best quarterback ever to play for legendary high school football team, the Messina Spartans. But fifteen years later, with his glory days far behind, the man everyone remembers is Coach Eddie Rake. 
 
When Neely returns home to bury the dying Coach Rake, he's not alone. Many Spartans veterans want to pay tribute to the man who moulded them. 
 
But stories soon emerge that could tarnish the coach's legacy. 
 
As Neely struggles to come to terms with his explosive relationship with the coach and the choices he made as a young man, the stakes have never been higher . . .

Bleachers

John Bryant

'If you want to win something, run 100 metres. If you want to experience something, run a marathon' - Emil Zatopek 
 
The London Marathon salutes 25 years of the London Marathon by exploring the incredible physical and mental challenge that lies at the very heart of marathon running. It begins with the author standing on the start line at Blackheath for the very first London Marathon in March 1981. And it ends 26 miles and 25 years later, as the author emerges, still running, past Buckingham Palace and on through the miles and memories to the finish. 
 
From the legend of Pheidippides and the mystery of Spiridon Louis - who won the first modern Olympic marathon in 1896 - to the agony of Paula Radcliffe, reduced to tears on the long road to Athens more than a century later, this is a story of dreams, pain, struggle and achievement. The courage and the craziness of the characters who for 25 years have run the streets of London, have turned this race into the greatest marathon in the world. 
 
The London Marathon is a testament to their endeavour, and to the spirit that leads them each spring to tackle their own suburban Everest. This is their story.

The London Marathon

P.G. Wodehouse

'The funniest writer ever to put words to paper' HUGH LAURIE 
_____________________________________________ 
 
From his early days Wodehouse adored cricket and references to the game run like a golden thread though his writings. He not only wrote about this glorious British pastime, but also played it well, appearing six times at Lords, where his first captain was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 
 
Illustrated with wonderful drawings and contemporary score-sheets, Wodehouse at the Wicket is the first ever compendium of Wodehouse's writings on cricket. Edited by cricket historian Murray Hedgcock, this delightful book also contains fascinating facts about Wodehouse's cricketing career and how it is reflected in his work. 
 
The perfect gift for Wodehouse readers and fans of all things cricket. 
 
_____________________________________ 
 
 
'You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour' STEPHEN FRY 
 
'Immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day' MARIAN KEYES 
 
'The greatest comic writer ever' DOUGLAS ADAMS 
 
'P.G. Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive' OLIVIA WILLIAMS

Wodehouse At The Wicket

A Cricketing Anthology

John Harlin III

In the 1960s an American named John Harlin II changed the face of Alpine climbing. Harlin successfully summitted some of the most treacherous mountains in Europe. But it was the North Face of the Eiger that became Harlin's obsession. 
 
John Harlin III was nine years old when his father put together a terrific team for an ill-fated direct ascent of the notorious Eiger. When Harlin's rope broke, 2,000 feet from the summit, he plummeted 4,000 feet to his death. In the shadow of tragedy, young John Harlin III came of age possessed with the very same passion for risk that drove his father. 
 
For years he successfully denied the siren call of the mountain that killed his father. But in 2005, John Harlin could resist no longer. With his daughter, Siena - his very age at the time of his father's death - and with an IMAX Theatre filmmaking crew watching, he set off towards the Eiger. This is an unforgettable story about fathers and sons, climbers and mountains, and dreamers who dare to challenge the earth.

The Eiger Obsession

Facing the Mountain That Killed My Father

_____________________________ 
THE NEW YORK TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER on the murder behind the Netflix documentary Killer Inside 
 
He had it all. A $40 million NFL contract. Fame. Adoration – until he was convicted of murder, and jailed for life without parole. 
 
A true story told by the master of crime fiction, All-American Murder is the tale of Aaron Hernandez, once the NFL's youngest player, a star for the New England Patriots and a Super Bowl veteran. His every move played out in the headlines, and yet he led a secret life – one that ended in a maximum-security prison. What drove him to go so wrong, so fast? 
 
This explosive account of the rise and fall of a life cut short in the dark shadow of fame, culminating in Hernandez's own untimely death behind bars, is built on original, in-depth reporting. Was Hernandez a victim himself, suffering violence-inducing brain damage from the sport that meant everything to him – or was he just a heartless killer? 
_____________________________ 
‘The man behind the hugely popular Alex Cross series has interviewed those closest to Hernandez to get the full, winding story on the NFL star turned murderer.’ The Sun 
 
‘Patterson unravels Hernandez’s complicated and troubling story.’ CBS News 
 
'This disturbing true-crime thriller is another fast and captivating Patterson read.' USA Today

All-American Murder

Andrew Jennings

In The Dirty Game, investigative reporter and BBC Panorama presenter Andrew Jennings, who has been heralded around the world for his decade-long pursuit of this story, uncovers the eye-watering level of fraud and criminal activity at the heart of FIFA, which has been described as the biggest sporting scandal of the century. 
 
From Blatter to Blazer, from bribery to embezzlement, Jennings reveals the key protagonists, crimes and evidence he handed to the FBI which led to the arrests of FIFA executive and the resignation of Sepp Blatter. Written in a gripping narrative, and based on years of research and never-before-seen documents, this is the definitive portrait of the downfall of FIFA, and the men who stole football.

The Dirty Game

Uncovering the Scandal at FIFA

Charlotte Dujardin

*THE TOP 10 BESTSELLER FROM THE MOST DECORATED BRITISH FEMALE OLYMPIAN IN HISTORY* 
 
'Refreshingly honest [...] a highly enjoyable, fascinating read.' Horse and Hound 
_______________________________________________ 
"To ride into that arena, next to a sea of British flags and hear the roar of clapping and cheering, was so exciting. It's a sound I will never, ever forget." 
 
Charlotte Dujardin and her charismatic horse Valegro burst onto the international sports scene with their record-breaking performance at the London, 2012 Olympics. The world was captivated by the young woman with the dazzling smile and her dancing horse. 
 
But no one quite knew what it took to get there, nor how hard the path to success would be - until now. Dujardin began riding horses at the age of two, but dressage was firmly the domain of the wealthy, not the life of a girl from a middle-class family. Her parents sacrificed all and with a undeterred focus, Charlotte left school at 16 to follow her dream. When she was invited to be a groom for the British Olympian Carl Hester, she began to ride Valegro, a dark bay gelding and an unbreakable bond was formed. 
 
This is their incredible story.

The Girl on the Dancing Horse

Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro

Don Whillans has an iconic significance for generations of climbers. His epoch-making first ascent of Annapurna's South Face, achieved with Dougal Haston in 1970, remains one of the most impressive climbs ever made - but behind this and all his other formidable achievements lies a tough, recalcitrant reality: the character of the man himself. 
 
Whillans carried within himself a sense of personal invincibility, forceful, direct and uncompromising. It gave him sporting superstar status - the flawed heroism of a Best, a McEnroe, an Ali. In his own circle, his image was the working-class hero on the rock-face, laconic and bellicose, ready to go to war with the elements or with any human who crossed his path on a bad day.

The Villain

The Life of Don Whillans

Andy Kirkpatrick

WINNER OF THE BOARDMAN TASKER PRIZE 2008 
 
Metro magazine recently wrote that Andy Kirkpatrick makes Ray Mears look like Paris Hilton. Words like boldness, adventure and risk were surely coined especially for him. As one of the world's most accomplished mountaineers and big-wall climbers, he goes vertically where other climbers (to say nothing of the general public) fear to tread. 
 
For the first time, this cult hero of vertical rock has written a book, in which his thirteen-day ascent of Reticent Wall on El Capitan in California - the hardest big-wall climb ever soloed by a Briton - frames a challenging autobiography. From childhood on a grim inner-city housing estate in Hull, the story moves through horrific encounters and unique athletic achievements at the extremes of the earth. As he writes, 'Climbs like this make no sense ... the chances of dying on the route are high.' Yet Andy, in his thirties with young children, has everything to live for. This is the paradox at the heart of the story. 
 
This book - by turns gut-wrenching, entertaining and challenging - appeals to the adventurer in all of us.

Showing results for: ‘Michael Symmons Roberts’

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