Ten of the best books for this Christmas

Harold Larwood: The World’s Fastest Bowler Duncan Hamilton (Quercus, £20)

RECENTLY confirmed as the winner of the prestigious William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, Duncan Hamilton’s biography of former Nottinghamshire and England fast bowler Harold Larwoood is a fascinating marriage of sport and social history.

Larwood was England’s chief weapon in the notorious ‘Bodyline’ tour of Australia, and Hamilton successfully conveys the extent to which the fast-bowling tactics threatened to bring down the whole of cricket.

However, he also uses the fall-out from ‘Bodyline’ to examine what the story tells us about issues of class and social standing in early 20th-Century Britain.

Larwood was born in a mining village, and his experiences open a fascinating window onto the codes and hierarchies that separated cricket’s public-school amateurs from its working-class professionals.

Having previously written an acclaimed biography of Brian Clough, Hamilton was already acknowledged as one of Britain’s finest sporting authors. This book serves to cement his position.

Ashes To Ashes Andrew Flintoff (Hodder, £19.99)

FROM one Ashes hero to another, but while Duncan Hamilton’s biography of Harold Larwood raises issues of society and class, Andrew Flintoff’s offering is rather less deep.

That said, it still provides some interesting background to two of the most significant series of the last ten years, and confirms Flintoff’s reputation as one of the most personable sporting figures around.

The all-rounder describes his immense pride at playing such a pivotal role in England’s Ashes successes in 2005 and 2009, and contrasts the euphoria with the pain that accompanied the ankle and knee injuries that almost ended his career.

Ashes To Ashes concentrates on the last four years of Flintoff’s career, and the major criticism would be that it contains little that your average England cricket fan would not already know.

Flintoff remains a more interesting figure than most, though, and his memories are informative enough to command attention.

Testing Times: In Pursuit of The Ashes Andrew Strauss (Hodder, £19.99)

THE Ashes are clearly a money-spinner in terms of cricket writing, and England skipper Andrew Strauss is the latest to mine an extremely productive seam.

Testing Times looks back at a tumultuous two-year period that began with Strauss in danger of losing his England place and ended with him lifting the Ashes urn.

Thanks to his privileged position, the opener is able to offer a first-hand perspective on key cricketing moments such as Kevin Pietersen’s captaincy, the dramatic events of the Stanford Twenty20, and the harrowing terrorist attack in Mumbai.

But while his position in the England dressing room affords access, it also prevents him from saying anything that could be construed as controversial.

At the end of his career, Strauss will be free to say what he really believes, and you already get the impression that will be much more interesting than this.

Motty: Forty Years In The Commentary Box John Motson (Random House, £18.99)

FORTY years, 2,000 matches and countless useless statistics – when it comes to a career in football, BBC commentator John Motson has seen more than most.

This is a ramble through his reminiscences and, like his commentating style, chances are you’ll either love it or hate it.

Fans of Motson’s anorak approach will lap up his factfilled descriptions of the great games he has covered, and the legends he has encountered along the way.

From Ronnie Radford to Wayne Rooney, Motty has met and interviewed them all, and his passion and enthusiasm are obvious from first page to last.

The only criticism is that the facts sometimes get in the way of the story, and those who find Motson overbearing on the airwaves are unlikely to find him any more palatable in print.

That said, however, this is one of the most readable and informative football books out there. And it obviously contains more pictures of sheepskin jackets than most.

Dallaglio’s Rugby Tales: Legendary Stories of Blood Sweat & Beers Lawrence Dallaglio (Headline, £18.99)

PART sporting biography, part sportsman’s dinner, former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio draws together a number of stories and anecdotes from his days as a rugby union professional.

Some raise a smile, such as the World Cup winner who curtseyed to the Queen, and now that he is retired, Dallaglio is not afraid to poke fun at his former colleagues.

But others try rather too hard to live up to the harddrinking rugby image that didn’t really last beyond the start of the professional era.

If you want genuinely hair-raising tales, listen to someone who was part of the England dressing room in the amateur days of the 1980s.

Dallaglio is clearly hoping to go one better, but at times you’re left feeling that the source material isn’t really there.

My Grand Prix Season Jenson Button (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, £20)

BRITAIN’S latest Formula One world champion delivers the personal diary of his stellar season.

It’s quite a tale, from the emergence of Brawn GP from the ashes of Honda to the thrilling overtaking moves that clinched the championship in the penultimate Grand Prix of the season.

Button adopts a race-by-race approach, and hardcore petrol-heads will appreciate details of prerace testing, car set-up, and notes on specific strategy and training.

For the more general sports fan, though, the technical minutiae becomes repetitive, and the lack of any real personal insight is a considerable weakness.

The pictures are impressive, but there are more thought-provoking Formula One books out there than this one.

Cantona: The Rebel Who Would Be King Philippe Auclair (Macmillan, £17.99)

AS ONE of the most iconic and inscrutable figures of the Premier League era, Eric Cantona continues to fascinate and bamboozle in equal measure.

On the one hand, there is the hothead who shocked the footballing world with his kung-fu kick at Crystal Palace, but on the other, there is the ball-playing genius who turned Leeds United into title contenders and became an alltime great at Old Trafford.

Leading French football journalist Philippe Auclair makes an excellent job of presenting both sides of Cantona’s character, and the result is a readable and authoritative account of his life story.

The depth of research is hugely impressive – Auclair interviewed over 200 key protagonists in Cantona’s career – and the complexity of the Frenchman’s personality is evident throughout.

The weakness, of course, is the lack of input from Cantona himself, but even the most ardent Manchester United fan will still discover something new about their hero.

Jacobs Beach: The Mob, The Garden and the Golden Age of Boxing Kevin Mitchell (Yellow Jersey Press, £18.99)

ONE of the surprise gems from this year’s litany of sports books, Jacobs Beach is the Guardian’s boxing writer Kevin Mitchell’s account of the sport in New York in the 1950s.

Mitchell successfully evokes boxing’s last golden era, touching on some of the legendary Madison Square Garden tear-ups that are remembered fondly today.

But the fights themselves are only part of the story, and Jacobs Beach is at its strongest when it examines the link between boxing in the 50s and the Mob.

Italian mobster Frankie Carbo was at the heart of the link, and Mitchell skillfully describes how the convicted murderer brought boxing and organised crime together.

The contrast between the surface Rat Pack cool and the criminality and profiteering that sustained boxing’s underbelly is brilliantly explored, and the result is a book that successfully transcends its genre.

Why England Lose: And Other Curious Phenomena Explained Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (HarperSport, £15.99)

A TIMELY publication as we enter a World Cup year, Why England Lose attempts to introduce an element of scientific research to some of the key footballing questions.

Utilising the techniques of bestselling books such as Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski also tackle the thorny topics of Newcastle United’s signings and the perenniallycontroversial penalty shoot-out.

At times their method works, and the sections using international economic data to interpret national team performances are particularly interesting. Suddenly, England’s World Cup record doesn’t look quite so bad at all.

But at other points, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the authors are simply cherry-picking certain statistics to support their argument, and ignoring others that could be used to argue against it.

Can football really be reduced to the laws of a market economy?

Kuper and Szymanski clearly think so – I’m not so sure.

Classic Football Debates Settled Once And For All Danny Baker and Danny Kelly (Ebury, £16.99)

CONTINUING the ‘love it or hate it’ theme, TV and radio personalities Danny Baker and Danny Kelly have teamed up to commit their rantings to print.

The result is a humorous and provocative series of arguments and discussions that lift the lid on the lighter side of football.

Which club has the handsomest fans? Who is the greatest player of all time?

Have foreign players helped or hindered the English game?

What was it really like to hang out with Paul Gascoigne back in the day?

It’s not exactly the Guinness Book of Football Trivia, but for anyone who likes Sky Sports’ Soccer AM or Radio Five Live’s 606, it’s likely to prove the starting point for a heated pub debate.

Hardcore football fans might bristle at the authors’ ‘Look at me’ approach, and there are times when the book is more about Baker and Kelly than football.

But this is a football book that never tries to take itself seriously and, on the whole, it’s all the better for that.

COMPETITION

TO help with the purchase of Christmas sports books, The Northern Echo has teamed up with Waterstone’s to offer one lucky reader a £100 gift card that can be used in any Waterstone’s store.

To win the gift card, simply answer the following question: What Grand Prix team did Jenson Button drive for this season?

Entry to the competition is free, and readers should send their answer, along with their name, address and daytime telephone number, to Christmas Sports Book Competition, Sports Desk, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF.

Alternatively, Email your answer to echosport@nne.co.uk

■ The closing date for competition entries is Friday, December 18.

■ All ten books featured on this page are available from local branches of Waterstone’s and online at www.waterstones.com