The book will be an inspiration to all the thousands of youngsters starting in the sport

An absorbing story of a man whose life has already thrilled millions

Duncan Ferguson’s life brought to book at last… gripping

One of football’s biggest enigmas…The author has painstakingly interviewed and researched every aspect of the player’s life

An exciting brand of nonfiction depicting the darker side of the American dream. An intimate, front-row look at two stories of hope, glory, and violence

Best book I read this year

Nothing else felt as strong and smart and fresh and honest this year - nothing else whipped my head around the way something great and truly new does

An intelligent, funny, and utterly captivating look at a surprising subculture

Thrown does what all literature aspires to do - to bring us into a community, a universe, we did not know we cared about and in the end leave us shattered and revealed

The most fascinating book I've read this year. The precision of Howley's prose reminds me of Joan Didion or David Foster Wallace

The fight book of our generation has landed. Thrown is a fantastic debut

A poetic portrait of a bloody American subculture, and a knockout of a nonfiction debut

As dark and funny as anything I have read this year

Kerry Howley embarks on a quest for ecstasy delivered in an unexpected forum: MMA fights. This transfixing nonfiction narrative combines bloody play-by-play with philosophical inquiry, delivering serious punches. Welcome to the Octagon

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

Excellent

One of the areas in which Lister really does a fantastic job is balance of opinion. The author has his own views, some more common sense than others, but he gives column inches to all sides of a story and allows everyone a chance to state their case… here's an excellent balance between sport and life. It gives great insight into some fascinating individuals and doesn't shirk the big issues. It's comprehensive, an easy read and never overstays its welcome… This book is a must read for the cricket fan out there, full of interesting stories, tales from the tour and a really close look at one of the best sporting outfits of all-time.

Cowen is without doubt one of our best current writers on landscape, on a par with Roger Deakin, Richard Mabey and Robert MacFarlane

Wonderful … An eerie haunting book … rendered with hair-raising, almost hallucinogenic, lyricism. Cowen moves on through the seasons of the year and the creatures of the edge land, feeling, more than observing, how the improving circumstances of animal life mirror his own climb out of darkness.

Blending natural history with a novelistic approach, Cowen revives his connection to the evocative, mysterious power of the natural world.

A luminous nature book

Very beautiful indeed... [Cowen] has all the alliterative grace and fresh metaphors of a poet

[A] poetic memoir... This apparently scrappy and overlooked piece of wasteland - a tangle of wood, meadow, field and river - proves to be, under [Cowen's] forensic and magnifying gaze, brimming with riches.

He is engrossed by his landscape, enthralled by the minutiae and evokes the same fascination in the reader