Shortlist For Sports Book Of Year Announced
The six books short-listed for the 2006 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, the most prestigious and valuable prize of its type - worth £20,000 to the winning author - have been announced.
The books are:
Andrew Greig
Preferred Lies: A Journey to the Heart of Scottish Golf
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson) an intensely moving personal golfing odyssey by a poet and novelist.
Paul Rambali
Barefoot Runner: The Life of Marathon Champion Abebe Bikila
(Serpent's Tail) the little known life story of the astonishing Ethiopian, Abebe Bikila who twice won Olympic Gold and revolutionised Marathon running.
Matt Rendell
The Death of Marco Pantani: A Biography
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Tour de France triumph and personal tragedy were combined in the most charismatic of cycling legends.
Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele Marcotti
The Italian Job: A Journey to the Heart of Two Great Footballing Cultures
(Bantam) hugely popular Italian international and Chelsea player turned successful boss, Vialli's unique perspective contrasts attitudes and approaches to football in his native Italy and adopted England.
Guy Walters
Berlin Games: How Hitler Stole the Olympic Dream
(John Murray) chilling examination of the way in which Hitler manouvered the organisation of the Olympic Games to suit his own ends and political ambitions.
Geoffrey Ward
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson
(Pimlico) how the first great black World Heavyweight Champion ruffled the feathers and almost literally got under the skin of the USA establishment of his day.
The announcement of the winner of this year's eighteenth William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award (run in association with Waterstones) - will be made at Waterstones in Piccadilly at a lunchtime ceremony on Monday, November 27.
'This is a vintage year featuring a wide range of superb books covering diverse sporting characters and subjects. The winner will have beaten off perhaps the strongest short-list ever assembled' said William Hill's spokesman Graham Sharpe.
The Judging Panel for the Award consists of: twice Sports Journalist of the Year, Paul Hayward; well known broadcaster and writer John Inverdale; broadcaster and writer Danny Kelly; the only sports journalist to win the overall Journalist of the Year award, Hugh McIlvanney; writer, columnist and author, Alyson Rudd.
Chairman of the Judging Panel and co-founder of the Award is the founder of the Sportspages bookshop, John Gaustad.
The winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year will receive £18,000 cash plus a £2000 William Hill free bet; plus a specially commissioned, unique bound copy of his book by master bookbinder David Sellars. The runners-up will each receive £2000 cash, a £1000 William Hill free bet and a leather-bound copy of the book.
