The Sports Bookshelf

A host of authors will be discussing their books at the London Festival of Sports Writing, which takes place at Lord's Cricket Ground from Thursday (November 12) to Sunday this week. This is the third year of this new festival dedicated to the best in sports writing, jointly hosted by David Luxton Associates and Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) with the support of media partner London Evening Standard. The four-day celebration kicks off on Thursday with cricket, football and tennis on the agenda for the opening day. Among the authors appearing will be Richard Tomlinson, author of Amazing Grace: The Man Who was W.G. , William Skidelsky, author of Federer and Me: A Story of Obsession . Tomlinson will sit down with Lawrence Booth, editor of Wisden, and Jonathan Rice, who compiled Wisden on Grace , to discuss the legacy of the great W. G. on the 100th anniversary of his death in the company of Richard Whitehead, editor of The Times on the Ashes . Skidelsky will talk about his...

Given that the post-Christmas weeks are for good reason a quiet period in sports book publishing, the timing for the release of the first major biography of Herbert Chapman in the first week of January will have struck many as curious. The January 6 publication date for Patrick Barclay's life of one of the great pioneers of English football was not a random choice, however.  It marked the 80th anniversary of Chapman's premature death, at the height of his powers, when a cold he had picked up during a trip home to his native South Yorkshire turned with frightening speed into pneumonia, to which he succumbed in scarcely more than 48 hours. Chapman was not quite 56.   It was 1934 and he had since 1925 been the manager of Arsenal, having earned recognition in the game for winning the League title twice and the FA Cup with Huddersfield Town before being tempted by an offer from the Highbury hierarchy to double his salary. By the early 1930s, Chapman had transformed Arsenal. ...