This week's bestselling sports books

TODAY'S TOP TEN BESTSELLING SPORTS BOOKS

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1 -- A Weight Off My Mind: My Autobiography

Author: Richard Hughes
Published by: Racing Post Books

Richard Hughes is not only one of horseracing's most successful and talented riders but also one of sport's most unlikely success stories. In this frank autobiography, Hughes describes with stark honesty the battle he had to wage with his body and mind to become a top rider. Too tall and heavy to be a jockey but too talented a horseman to be anything else, Hughes offers insights into the life of a top jockey, and the personal story of his descent into prolonged and deep alcoholism, from the perspective of seven years' sobriety. Shocking but also uplifting, A Weight Off My Mind is the engrossing story of a man who has overcome extreme personal trauma to become a racing superstar. For fans of racing and readers new to the sport, it offers a turbulent ride.

2 -- Tuffers' Cricket Tales

Author: Phil Tufnell
Published by: Headline

Phil Tufnell used to be known as The Cat for his fondness for dressing room naps, when not sneaking off for a crafty cigarette. These and other examples of an unorthodox approach to cricket turned him into a cult figure as a spin bowler for Middlesex and England. Now more commonly referred to as Tuffers, he has developed a second career as a broadcaster and reality show contestant.  "Tuffers' Cricket Tales" is a deliciously eccentric collection of his favourite cricket stories, featuring a cast of colourful characters he has encountered in dressing-rooms and commentary boxes and who have provided him with dozens of entertaining and insightful anecdotes, told with warmth and humour.

3 -- London 2012 Olympic Games: The Official Book

Author: The Press Association
Published by: Carlton Books Ltd

A stunning illustrated guide to the world's greatest sporting event and essential reading for sports fans everywhere. Packed with glorious photography and expert analysis of the star athletes and their prospects at the Games, written by the specialist journalists of the Press Association, the UK's leading national news agency. An authoritative and comprehensive preview of the 30th Olympiad, featuring a guide to each of the Olympic Games sports and venues, a brief history of the Games and the full competition schedule, so that you won't miss a moment, whether you are watching live in London or from the comfort of your own living room.

4 -- Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice

Author: Matthew Syed
Published by: Fourth Estate

Matthew Syed, Times sports writer and former international table-tennis champion (after many hours of practice) explores the true nature of talent and attempts to reveal what really makes a champion, debunking the myths that we can be born brilliant and that genetic make-up and social background matter.  World record triple jumper Jonathan Edwards says: 'Intellectually stimulating and hugely enjoyable at a stroke… challenged some of my most cherished beliefs about life and success.’

5 -- Be Careful What You Wish For

Author: Simon Jordan
Published by: Yellow Jersey

Simon Jordan loved Crystal Palace. He grew up a stone's throw from Selhurst Park and his father was on the club's books.  Simon was not a footballer but his success in the mobile phone business enabled him to have a lifestyle all but the highest paid players would envy: 18 cars, six homes, a private jet on lease, a £2.5 million boat, a permanent suite at the Grosvenor House Hotel and the wherewithal to spend £100,000 on living costs.  Then he decided he would buy Crystal Palace.  Ten years later the bulk of his fortune was gone.   Be Careful What You Wish For lifts the lid on Jordan's story and how he discovered a world where hopes and aspirations sit alongside greed, self-interest, overpriced players, dodgy transfers and top-level incompetence. He doesn't hold back.

6 -- How to Watch the Olympics

Authors: David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton
Published by: Profile Books

David Goldblatt, author of the acclaimed football history The Ball is Round, teamed up with writer and former Times obituarist Johnny Acton to compile the perfect book for anyone looking for an armchair companion for London 2012, How to Watch the Olympics will guide them through every event, explaining taekwondo repechages and who's big in handball with equal attention to detail as the track and field events that make the headlines.  With a chapter on each of the 26 Olympic sports, Goldblatt and Acton explain both the basic rules and the finer points from archery to wrestling by means of witty, insightful prose and clever diagrams and historical background so that even Greco-Roman wrestling need not be a mystery.

7 -- Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Author: Christopher McDougall
Published by: Profile Books

How an American former war correspondent with a love of running discovered a remote Mexican tribe, the Tarahumara, whose frugal, healthy diet was undermined somewhat by a love of grain alcohol but who achieved longevity through running extreme distances, barefoot, without the need for training schedules or recovery regimes. He finds them to be capable of running as fast and as far as the best prepared, most finely tuned marathon runners of the developed world and dreams of seeing them compete in the ‘greatest race’ of the title.

8 -- Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar

Author: David Millar
Published by: Orion

A compelling and at times harrowing account of cycling champion David Millar's fall into the murky world of doping. Banned for two years after being arrested in 2004 and admitting that he had taken the blood-boosting hormone, Erythropoietin -- better known as EPO -- Millar returned to racing and rebuilt his career, determined not only to compete without the aid of performance-enhancing drugs but to campaign against them.  In a powerful narrative, Millar describes the complexity of the circumstances in which he allowed himself to be drawn into the doping culture and offers considerable insight how drugs turned his sport rotten in a way that surpassed even the incidence of cheating in athletics.

9 -- The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods

Author: Hank Haney
Published by: Crown Archetypes

Hank Haney was swing coach to Tiger Woods for six years until their relationship broke down acrimoniously in 2010. During those years the supremely gifted golfer collected six major championships only to fall from grace over a series of scandals in his personal life.  Haney had the chance to observe Woods in nearly every circumstance: at tournaments, on the practice range, over meals, with his wife, Elin, and relaxing with friends. This is his candid account of what he saw.

10 - Merckx: Half Man, Half Bike

Author: William Fotheringham
Published by: Yellow Jersey

It says something about Eddy Merckx that Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France a record seven times, amassed fewer than a hundred career victories compared with 445 by the obsessive Belgian in professional races alone. His career brought outstanding success but also personal tragedy, horrific injury and a doping controversy, and masked a surprising level of insecurity. William Fotheringham, the Guardian cycling writer, speaks to those who watched and knew Merckx to produce the definitive biography.

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