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Peter Sagan

From 2015 to 2017, Peter Sagan achieved the seemingly impossible: he won three road race World Championships in a row, ensuring his entry into the history books as one of the greatest riders of all time. 
 
But to look at Peter’s record in isolation is to tell only a fraction of his story, because Peter doesn’t just win: he entertains. Every moment in the saddle is an opportunity to express his personality, and nobody else has succeeded in making elite cycling look so much fun. From no-hands wheelies on the slopes of Mont Ventoux to press conference mischief with clamouring journalists, Peter exudes a passion for the sport and a lovable desire to bring smiles to the faces of his fans. 
 
So, for the very first time, you will have the opportunity to glimpse behind the scenes of Peter’s world. You will discover the gruelling training programmes necessary for success, and how Peter copes with the pressure of high expectation. You will feel that sense of elation when crossing the line ahead of the pack, and moments of desperation, like in 2017 when Peter realised he wouldn’t be allowed to challenge for his sixth Tour de France green jersey. But what better tonic than to ensure a third year in rainbow – an achievement which may never be repeated again.

My World

Mark Whitaker

In 1928 two extraordinary Englishmen competed in an unprecedented event - a transcontinental road race across America that required them to run an average of 40 miles for 80 consecutive days. 
 
Despite being separated by class, education and age, Peter Gavuzzi and Arthur Newton became close friends and formed a successful business partnership as endurance athletes. They raced in 500-mile relays, in 24-hour events, in snowshoes and against horses; and they became the stars of a craze for endurance events that swept across depression-era North America and the most famous long-distance runners in the world. 
 
However, history has forgotten these two men, and in Running for Their Lives - in a story peopled with remarkable characters, unimaginable feats and tragic twists of fate - they only now receive the recognition they so richly deserve.

Running For Their Lives

The Extraordinary Story of Britain’s Greatest Ever Distance Runners

Peter Walker

A revolution on the roads is approaching. Is it time for drivers to Give Way? Guardian news correspondent, Peter Walker, takes us on a journey around the world, exploring the varying attitudes to cycling on our highways. 
 
Visit the shining examples of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, where cycling culture is an intrinsic part of the approach of politicians and officials. How have these cities made provision for cyclists and what are the extraordinary benefits? 
 
And then take to the less welcoming roads of Britain, USA and Australia, where cycling can still be a terrifying experience. What are the tragic mistakes being made when planning and developing cities, and how do these mistakes lead to aggression towards the cycling community? 
 
Millions of us find ourselves frustrated by the motor mentality and fighting for our rights to ride. This brilliant, shocking investigation will prepare you with all you need to know to confidently claim your place on the road.

Bike Nation

How Cycling Can Save the World

Peter Cossins

From the winner of the Telegraph Sports Book Awards Cycling Book of the Year 2018 
 
The first Tour de France in 1903 was a colourful affair full of adventure, mishaps and audacious attempts at cheating. Its riders included characters like Maurice Garin, an Italian-born Frenchman, said to have been swapped for a round of cheese by his parents in order to smuggle him into France to clean chimneys as a teenager, Hippolyte Aucouturier with his trademark handlebar moustache, and amateurs like Jean Dargassies, a blacksmith who had never raced before. 
 
Would this ramshackle pack of cyclists draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes? Surprisingly it did, and, all thanks to a marketing ruse dreamed up to revive struggling newspaper L'Auto, cycling would never be the same again. Peter Cossins takes us through the inaugural Tour de France, painting a nuanced portrait of France in the early 1900s, to see where the greatest sporting event of all began.

Butcher, Blacksmith, Acrobat, Sweep

The Tale of the First Tour de France

Chris Hulme

People don't want to know us. They don't want to know we exist. We have all committed horrendous crimes, and they aren't going to understand why we're allowed to play football. But it's the only thing that makes our lives bearable. We play in a local league - home games only - and it doesn't matter then who you are or what you've done, you can still be a hero on match day. For those ninety minutes it's your FA Cup, your European Cup, your World Cup. 
 
Zebedee, Teddy, Bunny, Nigel, Scouse, Raph, Bumpy, Wayne, Carl, Paddy and Rizler. Eleven men - a football team. In every British town there are hundreds of amateur football teams. This team has the usual sprinkling of talent, but is otherwise unique. Nine of these players have been convicted of murder and are serving life-sentences in HMP Kingston, the other two are their warders. 
 
Chris Hulme spent a season with the Kingston Arrows - watching every game, talking to them about their lives on the inside and out and supporting them in their attempt to win the league for the first time in ten years of trying. MANSLAUGHTER UNITED - the story of the hardest football team in England.

Manslaughter United

A Season with a Prison Football Team

Oli Broom

One man, one bike, two Mongoose cricket bats, one tropical disease, 16,000 miles and a lot of dead kangaroos … 
 
Oli Broom loves cricket. So much so that in 2009 he left his 9 to 5 in London and set off to cycle to Brisbane for the Ashes. Along the way he played cricket in the shadow of the Blue Mosque, slept in a goat pen in Sudan, dodged a 5-metre crocodile in the outback, battled mountains in sub-zero temperatures in Bulgaria and successfully negotiated the treacherous highways of India. 
 
Starring the colourful characters he met on his travels, this is a funny and poignant tale for anyone who’s ever dreamt of jacking in the day job to embark on an incredible adventure.

Cycling to the Ashes

A Cricketing Odyssey From London to Brisbane

The Estate Of Frederick Exley

'Listen, you son of a bitch, life isn't all a goddam football game! You won't always get the girl! Life is rejection and pain and loss...' 
 
A Fan's Notes - the horrible and hilarious account of a long failure. Our narrator is the ultimate unreconstructed male. His primary concerns are alcohol, sex and the New York Giants. But things go very wrong for him - he drinks too much, he's impotent and the Giants start to loose. And so we follow his boozy trail through two failed marriages, many bars and intermittent visits to Avalon Valley - a private home for the mentally ill. Shockingly politically incorrect, terribly self-indulgent but more than redeemed by its unremitting honesty and insight this is the unforgettable story of a man laid bare.

A Fan's Notes

William Skidelsky

A story of tennis, obsession and Roger Federer for tennis fans and the general reader alike. 
 
For much of the past decade, William Skidelsky has not been able to stop thinking about Roger Federer, the greatest and most graceful tennis player of all time. A devotion has been all-consuming. 
 
 
In Federer and Me, Skidelsky asks what it is about the Swiss star that transfixes him, and countless others. He dissects the wonders of his forehand, reflects on his rivalry with Nadal, revels in his victories and relives his most crushing defeats. 
 
 
But this is more than just a book about Federer. In charting his obsession, Skidelsky explores the evolution of modern tennis, the role of beauty in sport and the psychology of fandom, weaving his own past into the story. 
 
 
Thought-provoking and beautifully written, Federer and Me is a frank, funny and touching account of one fan's life. 
 
‘A splendid deconstruction of Federer’s technique’ Sunday Times

Federer and Me

A Story of Obsession

Tim Moore

Tim Moore - indefatigable travelling everyman – switches two wheels for four as he journeys across Trumpland in an original Model T Ford. 
 
‘Alarmingly full of incident, very funny – even mildly transformative’ Daily Mail 
 
Lacking even the most basic mechanical knowhow, Tim Moore sets out to cross Trumpland USA in an original Model T Ford. Armed only with a fan belt made of cotton, wooden wheels and a trunkload of ‘wise-ass Limey liberal gumption’, his route takes him exclusively through Donald-voting counties, meeting the everyday folks who voted red along the way. 
 
He meets a people defined by extraordinary generosity, willing to shift heaven and earth to keep him on the road. And yet, this is clearly a nation in conflict with itself: citizens ‘tooling up’ in reaction to ever-increasing security fears; a healthcare system creaking to support sugar-loaded soda lovers; a disintegrating rust belt all but forgotten by the warring media and political classes. 
 
With his trademark blend of slapstick humour, affable insight and butt-clenching peril, Tim Moore invites us on an unforgettable road trip through America. Buckle up!

Another Fine Mess

Jon Hotten

The Years of the Locust is a true story of intrigue, paranoia, murder and money set in the shimmering cities of America's South in the 1990s. It's the story of two men who never should have met, and when they did, one killed the other. There are walk-on parts for Don King, George Foreman, the FBI and a fallen NFL hero, yet it's the two central characters - sociopathic door-to-door-sales-king-turned-boxing-promoter Rick 'Elvis' Parker and his loyal, naive and ultimately incorruptible fighter Tim Anderson - that make this story extraordinary and unforgettable. 
 
It would be impossible to invent a man like Rick Parker, a freakishly fat ginger-haired giant who modelled his personal style on Elvis Presley and wanted to become the next Don King. Don himself told Rick how to do it - find a white man who could become the heavyweight champion of the world. Then Rick met Tim Anderson, a handsome, funny former baseball pro - was he the fighter to take Parker all the way? Rick left a trail of fixed fights and violent mayhem all across the South, but his dream stayed out of reach. By the end of his reign of terror Tim would be broke, poisoned and facing the hardest choice of all. And now Tim is doing life without parole in a state prison, and Rick - well, Rick's dead. 
 
By juxtaposing the lives of these two extraordinary men, The Years of the Locust turns a remarkable, riotous true-crime story into a profound examination of chance, choices and remorse - one that's scary, sad and blackly, bleakly funny.

The Years of the Locust

A True Story of Murder, Money and Mayhem in the Last Age of Boxing

‘Bill Bryson on two wheels’ Independent 
 
Self-confessed loafer Tim Moore, seduced by the speed and glamour of the biggest annual sporting event in the world, sets out to cycle the Tour de France. All 3,630km of it. 
 
A few weeks before the actual Tour de France, British writer Tim Moore sets out to cycle the course and offers a laugh-out-loud funny and highly entertaining account of how the great ride would feel when embarked on by an amateur. Racing old men on butchers' bikes and being chased by cows, Moore soon resorts to standard race tactics - cheating and drugs - in a hilarious and moving tale of true adventure.

French Revolutions

Cycling the Tour de France

Thomas McGuane

Thomas McGuane's obsession with fish has taken him from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the fly-fisher's world. As he travels the fish take him to many and various subjects ripe for random speculation: rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family and memory - right down to why fishermen lie. 
 
The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life.

The Longest Silence

A Life In Fishing

George Plimpton

After forays into American football, golf and the world of professional boxing, George Plimpton accepts his riskiest assignment yet: taking to the ice as goalie for his beloved National Hockey League team, the Boston Bruins. Signing a release holding the Bruins blameless if he should meet with injury or worse, his initiation into the league’s toughest tribe begins. But when the Bruins find themselves up against the equally fearsome Philadelphia Flyers, a mere five minutes in the rink can seem an eternity. 
 
Told with Plimpton’s characteristic humour and insight, Open Net is at once a celebration of the thrills and grace of the greatest sport on ice, and a probing meditation into the hopes and fears of every man.

Open Net

A Professional Amateur in the World of Big-Time Hockey

From the author of Paper Lion 
 
Following his turn as a Detroit Lions rookie in Paper Lion, George Plimpton returns to the field of American football and focuses on the careers of his Lions teammates, Alex ‘Mad Duck’ Karras and John ‘the Bear’ Gordy. What he uncovers is a fond tribute to the values and follies of this brutal, but captivating game. 
 
Paper Lion was the quintessential look at a football team behind the scenes and its companion, Mad Ducks and Bears, offers an astute exploration into the fascinating lives, thoughts and motivations of the players at home, in the locker room, and on the field.

Mad Ducks and Bears

Football Revisited

Tommy Simpson

The cyclist Tom Simpson is a legend. The first British world champion, the first Briton to pull on the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France - he brought professional cycling to a nation and inspired generations of riders. His autobiography, Cycling is My Life, was written the year before he died tragically on the barren moonscape of Mont Ventoux during the 1967 Tour aged just twenty-nine. Forty years on, hundreds of fans still make the pilgrimage to the windswept memorial which marks the spot where he died. 
 
In an age where each Tour de France seems more blighted by scandal than the next, Simpson's story is as relevant now as it was then. A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, yet the dapper 'Major Tom' inspired awe and affection from the British public for the obsessive will to win which was ultimately to cost him his life. 
 
First published in 1966, Simpson's autobiography is essential reading for every dedicated cycling fan and an engaging story of the life of an iconic sportsman.

Cycling is My Life

Simon Jones

Winner of the Wisden Book of the Year 
 
Eighteen years, eight series, eight defeats. These are the facts. I look around the room. We’re a young team. Strauss, Flintoff, Vaughan, the new guy, Kevin Pietersen. None of us remember England holding the Ashes. We are a generation that have grown up in Australia’s shadow. 
 
In 2005 Simon Jones took part in the greatest Ashes series of all time. As a devastating fast bowler in a brave young England team, Jones went toe to toe with the might of the seemingly unbeatable Australians. Over the course of fifty-four days Simon would experience the greatest highs of his career, and plunge to the lowest depths. The series would change his life for ever. 
 
In chapters that alternate between an unforgettable, insider's account of each of the five Tests and the remainder of his life, Simon presents the raw and unvarnished truth behind international sport; the joy and the sacrifice, the physical and mental cost and the unrelenting pressure. Heroes emerge, and cricketing legends are made human.

The Test

My Life, and the Inside Story of the Greatest Ashes Series

Ned Boulting

‘British cyclist. It used to be an oxymoron, a sort of silliness. Like French Cricket’ 
 
 Ned Boulting has noticed something. It’s to do with bikes. They’re everywhere. And so are their riders. Some of these riders seem to be sporting sideburns and a few of them are winning things. Big things. Now Ned wants to know how on earth it came to this. And what, exactly is 'this'. 
 
 In On the Road Bike, Ned Boulting asks how Britain became so obsessed with cycling. His journey takes him from the velodrome at Herne Hill to the Tour of Britain at Stoke-on-Trent via Bradley Wiggins, Chris Boardman, David Millar (and David’s mum), Ken Livingstone, both Tommy Godwins, Gary Kemp (yes, him from Spandau Ballet) and many, many more. The result is an amusing and personal exploration of the austere, nutty soul of British cycling. 
 
'Funny, fascinating and frequently touching ... will be enjoyed by anyone with even a passing interest in cycling. No bib shorts required' Guardian

On the Road Bike

The Search For a Nation’s Cycling Soul

A.L. Kennedy

Bullfighting - the ultimate spectator sport. 
 
Acclaimed novelist A. L. Kennedy unpeels the layers and explains the mechanics before dissecting them with surgical precision. Beyond the theatre, the costume and the well-worn plot she focuses on the fact that a man faces his death while a crowd looks on. The result is a startling confrontation with her own, and mankind's, mortality.

On Bullfighting

Paul Kimmage

An eye-opening expose of and a heart-breaking lament for professional cycling 
 
Paul Kimmage's boyhood dreams were of cycling glory: wearing the yellow jersey, cycling the Tour de France, becoming a national hero. He knew it wouldn't come easy, but he was prepared to put in the graft. The dedication paid off – he finished sixth in the World Championships as an amateur and in 1986, he turned professional. 
 
He soon discovered it wasn't about courage, training hours or how much you wanted to win. It was about gruelling defeats, total exhaustion, and drugs - drugs that would allow you to finish the race and start another day. 
 
 Kimmage ultimately left the sport to write this book – profoundly honest and ground-breaking, Rough Ride broke the silence surrounding the issue of drugs in sport, and documents one man’s love for, and struggle with, the complex world of professional cycling. 
 
 ‘A must read for any cyclist’ Cyclist 
WINNER OF WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR

Rough Ride

Behind the Wheel with a Pro Cyclist

Join Ned Boulting as he reports on his dozen-th Tour de France, an event in which blokes do amazing things on bikes, and, we’re oft told, the biggest annual sporting event in the world. 
 
101 Damnations is a chance to relive the 2014 race, stage for stage, fall after fall, tantrum by tantrum; just the good bits mind, without all the aerial shots of castles. Or sunflowers. (Though it does wax lyrical about some stunning Alpine scenery . . . and, with the race starting in Yorkshire, even some stunning scenery not far from Bradford). 
 
From Leeds to Paris (how often do you say that?), Ned details the minutiae of his encounters with the likes of Vincenzo Nibali, David Millar, Chris Froome, Chris Boardman (or ‘Broadman’ as some would have it), Marcel Kittel, Mrs Cavendish (Mark’s wife), Peter Sagan and the rest. Their endeavours, achievements, humour and occasional rancour, sit alongside his own decade-long quest for the ideal end-of-race T-shirt. 
 
Ned weaves together the interesting, amusing and unheralded threads of the race itself, and reflects on his own perennial struggle to get round, get on and get by. 101 Damnations encapsulates all that is incredible – and incredibly ordinary – about the greatest race on earth.

101 Damnations

Dispatches from the 101st Tour de France

Hugo Borst

‘Am I so smart or are you so stupid?’ – Louis van Gaal 
 
I started out wanting to write a book about Marco van Basten. I still do, but I dread the moment when I have to write something I know will make him unhappy. He’s not a man you wage war on. With Louis van Gaal it’s different: as a journalist he leaves you no choice. You’re not worthy of the name if you aren’t prepared to return fire when he starts yelling. 
 
Hugo Borst is an award-winning writer, journalist and TV pundit. He is also a close friend of Louis van Gaal. Well, he used to be. 
 
O, Louis is Hugo’s attempt to get to grips with this larger-than-life character. Full of outrageous stories and unintentionally hilarious encounters, Borst details his quest to understand the man and the breakdown in their friendship. He interviews an array of experts who each interpret the great manager from the perspective of their own field – a cleric, a politician, a psychiatrist, an impersonator, 
a theatre director, writers, poets and a trio of keen comic minds. Through these meetings as well as through his own encounters with Van Gaal, Borst is finally able to unlock the personality of this exceptional, talented, infuriating and even, occasionally, loveable man. 
 
‘This book will sell well. Everything that has my face on it sells well’ – Louis van Gaal

O, Louis

In Search of Louis van Gaal

Kevin Mitchell

25th February 1995 
The Dark Destroyer vs the G-Man 
Nigel Benn and Gerald McClennan 
 
Two men with a reputation to defend - a reputation for brutal, unforgiving combat both in the ring and outside it. Ostensibly, they were fighting for a world title and a lot of money, the stuff of professional boxing. But this fight was different. It was a rare collision of wills, and few present had seen anything like it. 
 
After ten of the most gruelling and vicious rounds that the sport of boxing has ever witnessed McClellan finally was defeated. He knelt in his corner on one knee in submission. And he never got up. 
 
This is the story of what brought these two men together on the night of 25th February 1995 and how that night changed them forever. It's a story too about those associated with the promotion of public fist-fighting, who bend morality to suit their needs. It's a story that attempts to unravel the glamour of violence. 
 
William Hill Sports Book of the Year Finalist.

War, Baby

The Glamour of Violence

'Bill Bryson on two wheels' Independent 
 
Scaling a new peak of rash over-ambition, Tim Moore tackles the 9,000km route of the old Iron Curtain on a tiny-wheeled, two-geared East German shopping bike. 
 
Asking for trouble and getting it, he sets off at the Arctic winter's brutal height, bullying his plucky MIFA 900 through the endless and massively sub-zero desolation of snowbound Finland. 
 
Haunted throughout the journey by the border detritus of watchtowers and rusted razor wire, Moore reflects on the curdling of the Communist dream, and the memories of a Cold War generation reared on the fear of apocalypse - at a time of ratcheting East-West tension. 
 
After three months, 20 countries and a 58-degree jaunt up the centigrade scale, man and bike finally wobble up to a Black Sea beach in Bulgaria, older and wiser, but mainly older.

The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold

Adventures Along the Iron Curtain Trail

Teddy Jamieson

From the late 1960s, Northern Ireland has been mired in violence. Yet it has had seen more than its fair share of sporting heroes - from footballer George Best, through snooker champion Alex Higgins, to boxer Barry McGuigan. Life was tough for these working-class lads, but they could shine on the football field or find refuge at the town boxing club. 
 
For other kids, like the young Teddy Jamieson, a knockabout in the back-lanes was as good as it got, but at least they had their heroes. Watching McGuigan on telly, Teddy could feel proud to be Northern Irish. But sport - like everything else in Northern Ireland - could quickly turn nasty when politics were involved. 
 
This extraordinary journey through sport and the Troubles has it all: from Olympic gold-medals to Gaelic football; from death threats to reconciliations. Then there is Teddy's own story, as we learn how the age-old playground question 'Whose side are you on?' doesn't always have an easy answer.

Whose Side Are You On?

Henrik Brandão Jönsson

In Brazil nothing is more important than football. 
 
If England is the birthplace of football then Brazil – the five-time World Cup winners and home of Pelé, Romário, Ronaldo, Neymar and the rest – is the heart and soul of the game. 
 
Jogo Bonito – meaning ‘the beautiful game’ – takes you on a journey through the Wild West of Brazilian football. On the way we meet an eclectic cast of characters, such as Mario Zagallo, the four-time World Cup winner; the long, lost son of Garrincha; Brazil’s best-loved bad boy player turned politician, Romário; and many more. We take a trip to an away game with the country’s most violent hooligans, visit the home of the world’s largest amateur football tournament and enjoy a boozy dinner with South America’s most famous commentator – he of ‘goooooooool’ fame. 
 
Jogo Bonito is a history, a travelogue and a gonzo-style report into a country which has the sixth biggest economy in the world and yet questionable records on education, healthcare and corruption. The result is a book that not only tells the story of Brazilian football, but also of today’s Brazil.

Jogo Bonito

Pele, Neymar and Brazil’s Beautiful Game

Nige Tassell

In these days of oligarch owners, superstar managers and players on sky-high wages, the tide is turning towards the lower reaches of the pyramid as fans search for football with a soul. 
 
Plucky underdogs or perennial underachievers, your local non-league team offers hope, drama or at least a Saturday afternoon ritual that's been going for decades. Nige Tassell spends a season in the non-league world. He meets the raffle-ticket seller who wants her ashes scattered in the centre-circle. The envelope salesman who discovered a future England international. The ex-pros still playing with undiluted passion on Sunday mornings. He spends time at clubs looking for promotion to the Football League, clubs just aiming to get eleven players on a pitch every week, and everything in between. 
 
One thing unites them: they all inhabit the heartland of the beautiful game. 
 
'The Bottom Corner is a wonderful journey through life in the lower reaches of the football pyramid. A fascinating tale of a very different world of football from that of the overpaid stars of the television age' Barry Davies

The Bottom Corner

Hope, Glory and Non-League Football

A Season with the Dreamers of Non-League Football

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

Jacobs Beach

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

Charles Rangeley-Wilson

Fishing can take you to the heart of a landscape in a way few other forms of travel can match. Whether in the world's most outlandish and awe-inspiring places or just at the end of your road, fishing will introduce you to crabby weather and crabbier locals, moon-phases, rip-tides, floods, droughts, remarkable tales, and of course fantastic slippery beasts. 
 
In The Accidental Angler you'll battle titanic monsters on a tropical atoll and make-believe sharks on the mushy-peas-and-gravy Wash. You'll chase inscrutable grayling through back gardens in Provence, or phantom sea trout in downtown Southampton. And you'll dance in Brazilian carvinals and find secret rivers hidden beneath the streets. 
 
Join Charles Rangeley-Wilson - angler, conservationist, television presenter and traveller - for the trip of a lifetime, on a journey that will make the familiar new, and the strange familiar.

The Accidental Angler

Tim Adams

Read a fan's eye view of one of tennis's most notorious stars, and an exploration into the idea of sporting obsession. 
 
The perfect nostalgic treat for any Wimbledon fan. 
 
The greatest sports stars characterise their times. They also help to tell us who we are. John McEnroe, at his best and worst, encapsulated the story of the eighties. His improvised quest for tennis perfection, and his inability to find a way to grow up, dramatised the volatile self-absorption of a generation. His matches were open therapy sessions, and they allowed us all to be armchair shrinks. 
 
 Tim Adams sets out to explore what it might have meant to be John McEnroe during those times, and in his subsequent lives, and to define exactly what it is we want from our sporting heroes: how we require them to play out our own dramas; how the best of them provide an intensity that we can measure our own lives by. Talking to McEnroe, his friends and rivals, and drawing on a range of reference, he presents a book that is both a fan's-eye portrait of the most vivid player ever to pick up a racket, and an original study of the idea of sporting obsession.

On Being John McEnroe

Marc 'Elvis' Priestley

In the high-octane atmosphere of the Formula One pit lane, the spotlight is most often on the superstar drivers. And yet, without the technical knowledge, competitive determination and outright obsession from his garage of mechanics, no driver could possibly hope to claim a spot on the podium. These are the guys who make every World Champion, and any mistakes can have critical consequences. 
 
That's not to say the F1 crew is just a group of highly skilled technical engineers, tweaking machinery in wind tunnels and crunching data through high-spec computers. These boys can seriously let their hair down. Whether it be parties on luxury yachts in Monaco or elaborate photo opportunities in gravity-defying aeroplanes, this is a world which thrills on and off the track. 
 
Join McLaren's former number-one mechanic, Marc 'Elvis' Priestley as he tours the world, revealing some of Formula One's most outrageous secrets and the fiercest rivalries, all fuelled by the determination to win. 
 
This is Formula One as you've never seen it before.

The Mechanic

The Secret World of the F1 Pitlane

Peter Rabbit Tales

Explore with Peter Rabbit

Peter Rabbit Animation

Peter Rabbit Slide-and-Seek

Peter Rabbit Lift-the-Flap Tales

Peter Rabbit’s Peekaboo

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12 of the best Christmas quotes from children's books

A decorative banner featuring a portrait of Jacqueline Wilson and a collage of playful illustrations like a rubix cube, a heart shaped locket, and bunny ears

Showing results for: ‘peter rabbit’

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