Humorous but also agonizing and also unfailingly fascinating regardless of one's interest in golf. For the psychology of the sport - and this is what Mr. Plimpton is probing - there is nothing more revealing around

Plimpton will interest even the man who can't tell a pitching wedge from a putter... This is really a book about a kind of madness with rules, and anyone can appreciate the appeal of that

Golf is a lonely and private game, lacking the natural drama of football, but Plimpton, by subsituting improvisation for plot, has caught its mad comedy and bizarre effects on people in a book just as charming, in its own way, as Paper Lion

With his gentle, ironic tone, and unwillingness to take himself too seriously, along with Roger Angell, John Updike and Norman Mailer he made writing about sports something that mattered

What drives these books, and has made them so popular, is Plimpton’s continuous bond-making with the reader and the comedy inherent in his predicament. He is the Everyman, earnests and frail, wandering in a world of supermen, beset by fears of catastrophic violence and public humiliation, yet gamely facing it all in order to survive and tell the tale… A prodigious linguistic ability is on display throughout, with a defining image often appended at the end of a sentence like a surprise dessert.

There are some great stories plus plenty of laughs and drama […] I’m looking forward to the second one already…

Nige Tassell has done us all a great service by reminding us of what makes Non-League football a key part of the fabric of British soccer in his book The Bottom Corner… Personally, I’ve most enjoyed my non-league experiences when I have had a team to support week-in and week-out and when taking in individual matches, the day quickly becomes more about the before and after, the drinks and the chance to visit somewhere new than the football itself. So, I’m less of an evangelist for the genre than many of my blogging peers such as The Real FA Cup and The Cold End. Tassell’s excellently written and good natured volume did remind me of what a treasure trove sport at this level can be

In this wonderful book Nige Tassell meets some of the people that populate the small clubs whose dreams often extend little further than winning through from the Extra Preliminary Round of the FA Cup

Examines the evolution of modern tennis, the role of beauty in sport and the psychology of fandom

It’s a dry comic look at devotion to sport

This is tennis’s answer to Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch… The book is particularly strong on Federer’s place in tennis history

Very enjoyable biography-cum-autobiography...this is a good book. Skidelsky has a feel for words, for the length of sentences and for tennis. The “sporty one” has finally proved himself

Thought-provoking and beautifully written, Federer and Me is a frank, funny and touching account of one fan’s life

Hooked: from opening lob to final shot

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

A stunning achievement

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 15.0px Calibri; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} Provides many revealing insights into the mind of a born winner

Brilliant, bruising

This is so much more than the story of their journey – it’s a superbly written, endlessly fascinating book encompassing history, geology, landscape, family memories, wars experienced and lives well lived.

One of the most unexpected and enjoyable reads of 2016… The book fizzes erudition and is delightfully leavened by the companionship of his aged and doughty father.

A very funny book - not jovial in the post-Wodehouse Boris mode but something more taught and Caledonian... The politician in Stewart never had a chance against the writer, a reliable adversary of consensus and cant.

Beautiful, evocative, and wise.

The Marches is a transporting work from a powerful and original writer.

This beautifully written account is a moving memoir of tales from along the route but also reflections on life and relationships – father and son on this their last journey together.

Rory Stewart is one of the most talented men of our era. The Marches takes us from Rory’s constituency to his family house is an attempt to understand the bloody history of the Scottish borders… The quest is fascinating even if the answers are elusive.

As the book unfurls, the march along the marches turns into a eulogy to his father, part memoir, part biography, always a love story. It also contains one of the most unflinching, moving descriptions of death I have read.

This beautifully written book is a haunting reflection of identity and our relationships with the people and places we love.

Stewart provides much food for thought about how we value our past history