The Sports Bookshelf

Television sports presenter Clare Balding leads a strong sporting line-up at the Ilkley Literature Festival, which began today in the beautiful Yorkshire spa town and continues for the next two and a half weeks. Clare will be talking about her newly-published memoir, My Animals and Other Family , at the Kings Hall on Friday, October 12 (7.30pm). My Animals and Other Family (Viking) is a memoir of Clare's early life at the racing stables run by her father, Ian Balding, where she sat astride legendary thoroughbreds such as Mill Reef, winner of the Derby and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and would sometimes walk into the family kitchen to find the Queen sitting at the breakfast table. Tour de France winner Stephen Roche , rugby league giant Robbie Paul and former England Test batsman Ed Smith are other sports stars who will be appearing at the Festival. Roche, the Irishman who won the cycling triple crown of Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and world championshi

Having done much to highlight the cultural significance of football in his fine book, Promised Land, it seems only fitting that Anthony Clavane has been given a literary platform from which to expand on the theme. He and Jason Cowley , the editor of the New Statesman, will be appearing at the Ilkley Literature Festival on Sunday (October 2nd) to explore football and culture in an event entitled Promised Land. Clavane’s book, the paperback version of which is subtitled A Northern Love Story sets the history of a football club -- Leeds United -- alongside the evolution of a city and its communities in a wonderfully crafted narrative that deservedly won a number of awards. Named Football Book of the Year in the National Sports Book Awards , it was subsequently awarded recognition as the overall Sports Book of the Year after a readers’ vote.  Promised Land was also selected as Sports Book of the Year by the Radio Two Book Club . Cowley, former editor of Granta and of the Obse