The Sports Bookshelf

Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson, written by award-winning journalist Paul Kimmage and published by Simon & Schuster, has been named as the British Sports Book Awards overall 'Sports Book of the Year' for 2012 after a public online vote.  Sports book fans were invited to name their favourite from the winning titles in each category from the British Sports Book Awards. Engage , deemed by the awards judges to be the best biography of the year at last month's British Sports Book Awards ceremony at the Savoy Hotel in London, tells the moving story of Matt Hampson , a promising young rugby player who was paralysed from the neck down after an accident in an England training session. Remarkably, Hampson has adjusted with enormous courage to a limited everyday life.  He is constantly attached to breathing equipment because the damage to his body left him unable to inflate and deflate his lungs unaided yet attended the awards dinner alongside Kimmage. Mick De...

BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2012 The Rugby Book of the Year category of the British Sports Book Awards 2012 includes two of the favourites to win the overall Book of the Year award, which will be decided by a public vote. Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson , by Paul Kimmage, is 4-1 with Ladbrokes, a long-standing supporter of the annual awards, who rate Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar as favourite at 3-1. Jonny Wilkinson's autobiography 'Jonny' is priced at 5-1 alongside William Hill Sports Book of the Year winner A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke. Gary Neville's Red: My Autobiography is 6-1, with The Breaks Are Off , by Graeme Swann, 7-1. Today The Sports Bookshelf outlines the six titles shortlisted for Rugby Book of the Year as the build-up to the announcement of the winners continues. These will be revealed at a black tie dinner at The Savoy Hotel in London next Monday, May 21, when Nick Hornby wi...

News Award-winning writer Paul Kimmage is to ghost the autobiography of Ireland’s Grand Slam-winning rugby captain, Brian O’Driscoll. Dublin-born Kimmage, who recently won the William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year prize for Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson , has been signed up as part of the deal that landed Penguin Ireland the O’Driscoll story. O’Driscoll, who was voted world player of the decade by Rugby World magazine in January 2010, is one of only two men to captain Ireland to a Grand Slam.  He has also led them to four Triple Crown triumphs and is Irish rugby’s all-time highest international try scorer with 46. Kimmage, who recently left the Sunday Times , said he was honoured by the invitation to write O’Driscoll’s book. "It's incredibly flattering to be asked to do it,” he said. “Brian is one of our (Ireland’s) genuine superstars.” Yet admirers of the 38-year-old former professional cyclist will not be at all surprised at Penguin’s eagerness...

William Hill Sports Book of the Year award -- the contenders The winner of the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year will be revealed tomorrow.  For the last week, The Sports Bookshelf has been presenting a run-down of the seven titles on the short list. Today: Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson  (Simon & Schuster) THE STORY: It was March 15, 2005. Matt Hampson, a 20-year-old tight-head prop from the Leicester Tigers club, was taking part in a training session with an England Under-21 team that included Ben Foden, Toby Flood and James Haskell. The forwards were in full, contested scrum practice. Not unusually, as 16 hefty men confront each other in a shoving match, the scrum would collapse from time to time. Thankfully, despite the risks inherent, the players normally pick themselves up unscathed and resume practice. On this occasion, however, it was different. By some freak of physics, the full force of this collapse ended up being borne by Matt ...