Which is your favourite? The 2013 Sports Book of the Year - make your vote count

Last year, it was the harrowing story of crippled rugby player Matt Hampson Engage! that attracted the strongest approval among sports book fans participating in an online poll; in 2011 it was Anthony Clavane's Promised Land, a beautifully crafted history of a football team, a city and a culture.

Pictures from the awards evening at Lord's

So which of nine category winners from the 2013 British Sports Book Awards will emerge as overall Times Sports Book of the Year when voting closes at midnight on June 7?

The accolade is one that readers themselves can determine, rather than a panel of judges, by linking to this page and nominating which of the titles honoured at this week's awards ceremony at Lord's Cricket Ground they think deserves to be granted the highest recognition.

These are the nine category winners who make up the list to be put to an online public vote, with links to selected reviews.

Best new writer - Adharanand Finn's Running with the Kenyans: Discovering the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth.

"In unobtrusively beautiful prose, he (Finn) evokes the will to run at the heart of Kenyan life...he quietly reminds us why running, “this primal urge” that every child feels, is as mysteriously human as anything we do." -- Rowland Manthorpe (The Telegraph online). Read the full review here.

Best Autobiography/Biography - Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, by David Walsh

"Walsh’s persistence and refusal to give into the bullying tactics of the Texan were clearly vital towards accelerating the process of his downfall... cycling fans should certainly be grateful now that Walsh chose to dedicate such a significant portion of his career to bringing the truth to light." -- Freddie Shires (Sports Gazette). Read the full review here.

Best Cricket Book - On Warne, by Gideon Haigh

"At no stage of the book does Haigh purport to really know the man. Instead he concentrates on the cricketer, and as a writer of rare gifts, does his subject a great service by painting some of the most compelling word pictures of his craft ever put to print." -- Daniel Brettig (Cricinfo). Read the full review here.

Best Football Book - Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World, by Graham Hunter.

"It is a sterling work of journalism...a window into a remarkable time in the history of this delight of a football club. It makes something seemingly absurd...make perfect sense." -- Barcelona Football Blog. Read the full review here.

Best Golf Book - Bobby's Open: Mr. Jones and the Golf Shot That Defined a Legend, by Steven Reid

"Reid’s book will bring to life a heady mixture of professionalism and amateurism that was indicative of the sport between the wars...it will also explain why a lawyer from Atlanta, Georgia, was treated with such high regard by an adoring public." -- Bob Warters (www.golfmagic.com). Read the full review here.

Best Horseracing Book – Her Majesty's Pleasure: How Horseracing Enthrals the Queen, by Julian Muscat.

"A beautifully presented book penned to perfection by former Times racing correspondent Julian Muscat...a carefully woven tale of a monarch truly in love with the sport of racing in which she has enjoyed a huge amount of success." -- Newmarket Journal.  Read the full review here.

Best Rugby Book – The Final Whistle: The Great War in Fifteen Players, by Stephen Cooper

"The author’s turn of phrase alternates between the poetic and the wry (appropriately enough for a book dealing with the tragedies, triumphs and absurdities of war), but the most captivating segments are the diary entries and letters home...emphasising the true sadness of lives so brutally cut short." -- The Village. Read the full review here.

Best Motorsports Book – That Near Death Thing: Inside the Most Dangerous Race in the World, by Rick Broadbent.

"For many (TT riders), the challenge seems addictive. As is this book; by the end you might not share these men's passion, but you begin to understand, even admire it." -- Simon Redfern (The Independent). Read the full review here.

Best Illustrated Book – 21 Days to Glory: The Official Team Sky Book of the 2012 Tour de France, by Team Sky and Dave Brailsford.

"Where this book really performs over the scores of other post-Wiggins-victory fare is in Scott Mitchell's pictures, which include shots of a furious post-crash Mark Cavendish on the team bus in Rouen, Bernhard Eisel having his eyebrow stitched after the same incident, and countless quiet, private moments with Wiggins and the rest of the team." -- Ben Atkins (www.velonation.com).  Read the full review here.

Vote for your Sports Book of the Year.

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Broadbent, Haigh and Finn among eight writers honoured at British Sports Book Awards - and how you can vote for the best of the best

Congratulations to Rick Broadbent, Gideon Haigh, David Walsh, Julian Muscat, Graham Hunter, Adharanand Finn, Steven Reid and Stephen Cooper -- eight fine authors who scooped the writing prizes at the British Sports Book Awards.

Broadbent, best known as the athletics correspondent of The Times (and the ghost of Jessica Ennis's autobiography), won the motorsports category for That Near-Death Thing, his excellent work on the Isle of Man TT Races seen through the eyes of four riders.  Murray Walker's accolade says it all: "Nobody has succeeded in capturing the spirit of the greatest Motor Sport event with a fraction of the success that Broadbent has."

No surprise that the Australian writer Haigh claimed the cricket category prize for On Warne, his analysis of Australia's great leg spinner as a cricketer and a person.  Haigh rarely seems to write a duff sentence, let alone an ordinary book.  This one is a series of beautifully crafted essays examining Warne's life from different angles.

After Tyler Hamilton won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award last autumn partly on the basis that his book The Secret Race changed the sport of cycling, detailing his role in the downfall of his former teammate, Lance Armstrong, it is no surprise that Sunday Times journalist David Walsh should win the autobiography/biography prize for Seven Deadly Sins, the full chronicle of his quest to establish the truth about the disgraced American rider's cheating.

Graham Hunter, the Scottish journalist based in Spain, took the best football book award for Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World, which goes behind the success of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and the rest of Barcelona's brilliant team to reveal how the Catalan side evolved into one of the best the world has seen.

The best horseracing book was judged to be Julian Muscat's Her Majesty's Pleasure, in which the Racing Post journalist paints a revealing portrait of The Queen via the company in which she is said to feel most at ease, among the racing community.   Members of what might be termed the royal circle tend to be guarded about what they reveal but Muscat's interviewees offered some candid anecdotes.

Stephen Cooper took the award for best rugby book for The Final Whistle, his fascinating story of 15 Rosslyn Park rugby players killed in the First World War, while Adharanand Finn was named best new writer for his entertaining Running With the Kenyans, in which he sought to discover the secrets of the world's greatest distance runners.

The golf prize was won by Steven Reid, the historian of Royal Lytham and St Anne's golf club for Bobby's Open, the story of the American golfer Bobby Jones, who played as an amateur and is the only player to have won the Grand Slam of US and British amateur championships, the Open and the US Open in the same calendar year (1930).

One of the winning titles will be named as The Times Sports Book of the Year, to be determined by a public online vote, which closes at midnight on June 7, 2013.  You can vote by visiting www.britishsportsbookawards.co.uk. 

The awards presentations at Lord's cricket ground also featured a special tribute to the late Christopher Martin-Jenkins, the journalist, author and commentator, whose widow, Judy, accepted an award for Outstanding Contribution to Sports Writing on his CMJ's behalf.

The full list of winners is as follows:

Best New Writer

Running with the Kenyans: Discovering the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth, by Adharanand Finn (Faber and Faber)

Best Autobiography / Biography (in association with The Times)

Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, by David Walsh (Simon & Schuster)

Best Cricket Book (in association with Littlehampton Book Services)

On Warne, by Gideon Haigh (Simon & Schuster)

Best Football Book (in association with Lycamobile)

Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World, by Graham Hunter (BackPage Press)

Best Golf Book (in association with St Andrews – Old Course Hotel Golf Resort & Spa and Hamilton Grand)

Bobby's Open: Mr. Jones and the Golf Shot That Defined a Legend, by Steven Reid (Icon Books)

Best Horseracing Book (in association with Ladbrokes)

Her Majesty's Pleasure: How Horseracing Enthrals the Queen, by Julian Muscat (Racing Post Books)

Best Rugby Book (in association with BT Sport)

The Final Whistle: The Great War in Fifteen Players, by Stephen Cooper (The History Press)

Best Motorsports Book (in association with Arbuthnot Latham)

That Near Death Thing: Inside the TT - Most Dangerous Race in the World, by Rick Broadbent (Orion)

Best Illustrated Book (in association with Getty Images)

21 Days to Glory: The Official Team Sky Book of the 2012 Tour de France, by Team Sky and Dave Brailsford (HarperCollins)

Outstanding Contribution to Sports Writing

Christopher Martin-Jenkins

Best Publicity Award (in association with PPC)

Be Careful What You Wish For, by Simon Jordan – Bethan Jones (Yellow Jersey Press)

Sports Book Retailer of the Year (in association with Simon & Schuster)

Foyles

For more information and to buy, click on the links.

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2013 British Sports Book Awards: 2011 winner Anthony Clavane makes the shortlists again

London 2012 headline-makers Sir Bradley Wiggins and Lord Sebastian Coe -- and Olympic TV presenter Clare Balding -- are among the nominees for the 2013 British Sports Book Awards.

A strong field for the 11th edition of the National Sporting Club's annual recognition of excellence in sports writing also includes a number of past winners, among them Duncan Hamilton, Anthony Clavane and Jonathan Wilson.

Hamilton, who won best football book in 2008 for Provided You Don't Kiss Me and best biography in 2010 for Harold Larwood, is nominated in the best biography or autobiography category for The Footballer Who Could Fly, which focuses on his own upbringing in the north-east of England.

Clavane, whose personal history of Leeds United, Promised Land, won best football book in 2011 and was voted overall sports book of the year in an online poll, is in the running again for best football book for Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?, which examines of Jewish involvement in football.

Inverting the Pyramid, a history of football tactics, won best football book for Jonathan Wilson in 2009.  This time he has been nominated in the same category for The Outsider, a broad history of the goalkeeper in football.  Confusingly, The Outsider is also the title chosen by Geordan Murphy, the Irish rugby star, for his autobiography, which is shortlisted for best rugby book.

Other interesting nominations include fell runner Boff Whalley's Run Wild in the best new writer section, That Near Death Thing, Rick Broadbent's brilliant study of the Isle on Man TT races, for best motorsport book, and Stephen Cooper's The Final Whistle: The Great War in 15 Players, which tells the story of 15 members of Rosslyn Park rugby club killed in the First World War, a group of men from differing backgrounds linked in a common fight for Britain and Empire.

Coe's Running my Life and the Wiggins bestseller My Time are shortlisted in the  in the autobiography / biography category, which also includes the story of award-winning Sunday Times journalist David Walsh's pursuit of disgraced cycling champion Lance Armstrong, Seven Deadly Sins. 

Clare Balding's My Animals and Other Family finds a home on the shortlist for best horse racing book, although it would sit comfortably among the autobiographies too.

The most poignant title among the shortlisted titles is the best cricket book nominee, CMJ: A Cricketing Life,   the memoirs of Christopher Martin-Jenkins, former cricket correspondent of The Times and the BBC, who died in January.

In all, nine award categories will be contested by 56 titles. The winners will be announced at Lord’s Cricket Ground on May 21st.  The winners in each category will then go to an online public vote will determine the overall British Sports Book of the Year.

Full shortlists (Click on the links for more information):

Best New Writer:

Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World, by Graham Hunter
Beautiful Brutality: The Family Ties at the Heart of Boxing, by Adam Smith
Run Wild, by Boff Whalley
Running with the Kenyans: Discovering the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth, by Adharanand Finn
Shot and a Ghost: A Year in the Brutal World of Professional Squash, by James Willstrop
Sit Down and Cheer: A History of Sport on TV , on TV by Martin Kelner

Best Autobiography / Biography:

An Open Book - My Autobiography, by Darren Clarke
Be Careful What You Wish For, by Simon Jordan
Merckx: Half Man, Half Bike, by William Fotheringham
My Time, by Bradley Wiggins
Running My Life - The Autobiography, by Seb Coe
Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong, by David Walsh
The Footballer Who Could Fly, by Duncan Hamilton
This is Me: The Autobiography, by Ian Thorpe

Best Cricket Book:

CMJ: A Cricketing Life, by Christopher Martin-Jenkins
Gentlemen & Players: The Death of Amateurism in Cricket, by Charles Williams
On Warne , by Gideon Haigh
The Plan: How Fletcher and Flower Transformed English Cricket, by Steve James
The Valiant Cricketer: The Biography of Trevor Bailey, by Alan Hill
We'll Get 'Em in Sequins: Manliness, Yorkshire Cricket and the Century that Changed Everything, by Max Davidson

Best Football Book:

Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World, by Graham Hunter
Be Careful What You Wish For, by Simon Jordan
Does Your Rabbi Know You're Here?: The Story of English Football's Forgotten Tribe, by Anthony Clavane
Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning - The Biography., by Guillem Balague
Richer Than God: Manchester City, Modern Football and Growing Up, by David Conn
The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper, by Jonathan Wilson

Best Rugby Book:

Behind the Lions: Playing Rugby for the British & Irish Lions, by Stephen Jones, Tom English, Nick Cain and David Barnes
Brent Pope: If You Really Knew Me, by Brent Pope & Kevin MacDermot
My Life as a Hooker: When a Middle-Aged Bloke Discovered Rugby, by Steven Gauge
The Final Whistle: The Great War in Fifteen Players, by Stephen Cooper
The Outsider, by Geordan Murphy
Who Beat the All Blacks?, by Alun Gibbard

Best Motorsports Book:

My Chequered Career: Thirty-Five Years of Televising Motorsport, by Steve Rider
Team Lotus: My View from the Pit Wall, by Peter Warr
That Near Death Thing: Inside the Most Dangerous Race in the World, by Rick Broadbent
Formula 1: All the Races - The World Championship Story Race-By-Race: 1950-2012 , by Roger Smith
Lotus 72 Owners' Manual, by Ian Wagstaff
I Just Made the Tea: Tales from 30 Years Inside Formula 1, by Di Spires and Bernard Ferguson

Best Horse Racing Book:

A Weight Off My Mind: My Autobiography, by Richard Hughes with Lee Mottershead
Clive Brittain: The Smiling Pioneer, by Robin Oakley
Her Majesty's Pleasure: How Horseracing Enthrals the Queen, by Julian Muscat
My Animals and Other Family, by Clare Balding
Racing Crazy: The Best of David Ashforth, by David Ashforth
When Horse Racing Was Horse Racing: A Century on the Turf, by Adam Powley

Best Golf Book:

Out of Bounds: Legendary Tales From the 19th Hole, by Sam Torrance
An Open Book - My Autobiography, by Darren Clarke
Miracle at Medinah: Europe's Amazing Ryder Cup Comeback, by Oliver Holt
Bobby's Open: Mr. Jones and the Golf Shot That Defined a Legend, by Steven Reid
Seve: Golf's Flawed Genius, by Robert Green
The Bible of Golf, by Skellett & Weitzman

Best Illustrated Title:

21 Days to Glory: The Official Team Sky Book of the 2012 Tour de France, by Team Sky and Dave Brailsford
A Swing for Life, by Nick Faldo
Bike!: A Tribute to the World's Greatest Cycling Designers, by Richard Moore & Daniel Benson
Coppi: Inside the Legend of the Campionissimo, by Herbie Sykes
Frankel: The Wonder Horse, edited by Andrew Pennington
The Glory Glory Nights, by Martin Cloake and Adam Powley

Best Publicity Campaign:

Be Careful What You Wish For, by Simon Jordan – Bethan Jones
Between the Lines: My Autobiography, by Victoria Pendleton with Donald McRae -- Caroline March
Running My Life - The Autobiography, by Sebastian Coe – Karen Geary
he Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs, by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle – Alison Barrow
Tom Daley: My Story, by Tom Daley – Jo Wickham
Jessica Ennis: Unbelievable - From My Childhood Dreams to Winning Olympic Gold, by Jessica Ennis – Eleni Lawrence and Lucy Zilberkweit

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