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Gilles Villeneuve: The Life of the Legendary Racing Driver
Gilles Villeneuve: The Life of the Legendary Racing Driver
Oct 3, 2024 3:25 PM

Author:Gerald Donaldson

Gilles Villeneuve: The Life of the Legendary Racing Driver

Gilles Villeneuve became a legend in his own time, a driver whose skill and daring personified the ideals of Grand Prix racing, the pinnacle of motor sport.

With his flamboyantly aggressive, press-on-regardless style in his scarlet Ferrari, he captured the imagination of a vast international audience as no other driver has in recent times.

Reviews

Donaldson has delivered the ultimate tribute to a remakable sportsman.

—— Daily Telegraph

Meticulously researched, finely structured to a remarkable sportsman.

—— The Times

A quite brilliant book. This is, without doubt, the best motor racing book this reviewer has ever read.

—— Autosport

It is true to say that I had great difficulty in putting this book down. Don't miss it.

—— Murray Walker

I'd be frightened to put a price on his head these days ... Paul was as good a young player as I've ever worked with.

—— Howard Kendall

Without question, he is the best young player I have ever worked with

—— Mel Machin

You would class Paul in the top bracket. I always likened him to Colin Bell - he had that great ability to get up and down the park.

—— Tony Book

It was like having one of your mates playing for City. He would've captained England. No question. He was - and remains - one of us

—— Noel Gallagher

Paul Lake was the most gifted in the group of young players who brightened Manchester City up for fans in the 1980s who were pining for the glory days to return...his is an inspirational human story

—— David Conn , The Guardian

His memoir - I'm Not Really Here - spares nothing in the raw details of what Lake endured. A football read even more harrowing than an England player's World Cup diary

—— Sport

Sullivan knows how to craft a paragraph and tell a story

—— Sunday Business Post

Reads as what it is: a great first book

—— Jon Day , New Statesman

This morning Blood Horses showed up in the post. It’s Sullivan’s first book, a memoir about his late sportswriter father as well as a study of equine racing and breeding and obsessing over. We’re only 30 pages in but we’re convinced Sullivan wins it by a length and then some. He’s the best thing to come out of the south since 2 Chainz

—— Dazed and Confused

A truly fascinating and brilliantly written memoir recounting Sullivan’s relationship with his writer father but also a detailed examination of horse racing, the love of his father’s life, as well as an entire treatise on the relationship between man and horse

—— Doug Johnstone , The Big Issue

Blood Horses blends history, reportage and personal essay. The book is an excellent example of the mixed form that the critic Northrop Frye once called an “anatomy”. [Sullivan’s] enthusiasm rubs off

—— John Sunyer , Financial Times

Brilliant, sometimes maddeningly discursive memoir… Sullivan writes beautifully. Blood Horses makes better reading than the smoothly finished works of less witty and accomplished writers

—— Nick Rennison , Sunday Times

All the elegance and craft [Sullivan] displayed in [Pulphead] are present once again

—— Tim Lewis , Observer

Luminous, hard-to-characterise book... By the sheer fizzing excellence of his writing [Sullivan] carries off the difficult task he set himself triumphantly

—— Simon Redfern , Independent on Sunday

It’s a daring approach combining memoir and reportage and, beneath it all, the autobiographical theme of his attempt to understand his father, but it works magnificently

—— Christena Appleyard , Literary Review

An obvious choice, ultimately. A book that went beyond entertainment or education in their normal senses. This is the book that opened the world's eyes to the incredible doping scandal in cycling and the crimes of Lance Armstrong. A book that will be on almost all awards lists for books this year, and will surely migrate to the lists of all-time great books as its impact becomes more apparent over time.

—— Newstalk, Sports Book of the Year

Explosive... a stunning and sometimes sickening account of the doping pervasive in the pro peloton.

—— Sports Illustrated

Haunting... takes readers deep inside the gory cult of back-alley phlebotomy that ruled cycling as Armstrong launched and nurtured his Livestrong brand.

—— New York Daily News

Rich, magisterial account...Other books on Hemingway have tended to focus on his post-1930s literary decline and his machismo. The portrait that emerges from these pages is altogether more human

—— Ed Caesar , Sunday Times

He has a tremendous feel for Hemingway, as both writer and man

—— Sarah Churchwell , Guardian

This is a portrait of the author which is likely to leave one feeling more warmly disposed towards him

—— Herald

More a portrait than a biography, this book is a dazzling late example of "New Journalism"...the result is touching, revelatory and utterly absorbing

—— Independent

Unmissable

—— The Lady

While much of Hemingway’s life may have been hellish, Hendrickson’s writing is a delight. A fine work

—— Fachtna Kelly , Sunday Business Post

Very well told

—— William Leith , Scotsman

An album of fascinating snapshots of Hemingway

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

Paul Hendrickson writes with a great deal of passion…

—— Nudge

A terrific and fresh approach to the man

—— Daniel Woodrell , Financial Times
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