The best sports books of 2012 -- a Sports Bookshelf selection
As we welcome 2013 and a whole new raft of sports literature, time to reflect on the best of 2012, or at least those that appealed most to The Sports Bookshelf. Not surprisingly, the short and longlists from the William Hill Sports Book of the Year awards are well represented, most prominently by the winner of that prize, the extraordinary exposé of chemical cheating that helped bring down one of sport's biggest names in the cyclist Lance Armstrong. In the words of the judges, The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France won the William Hill prize for self-confessed doper Tyler Hamilton because it 'fundamentally changed the sport it described' but it stands as a great read, too, irrespective of the impact of its content. Skilfully crafted by the journalist Daniel Coyle, Hamilton's account of his time alongside Armstrong in the US Postal Team has the style and suspense of an espionage novel as Hamilton, who was right at the heart of the most so