The Sports Bookshelf

Donald McRae, twice winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year prize, is an early favourite to be among the winners at the 2016 Cross Sports Book Awards. The South African-born writer, whose interviews in The Guardian newspaper are always worth reading, collaborated with former Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard on his autobiography, My Story. The book is notable for some frank opinions on colleagues and opponents, referees and managers, but also for Gerrard's ability to look inside himself and describe how he was affected by the ups and downs of his career. After completing the book, published after the player said his farewells to Liverpool before moving to conclude his career in America, McRae commented: "Gerrard leads us through every exhilarating high and bruising low of his 27 years at Liverpool. It is a career full of contrast and drama. “There is depth and pathos, too, because Steven Gerrard is a one-club man who joined the Liverpool acad

BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2012 There are eight contenders named on the shortlist in the biography and autobiography category for the British Sports Book Awards 2012.  It is a particularly strong field. Ronald Reng's story of the tragic life of German international goalkeeper Robert Enke is also named in the Football Book of the Year category, while Jonny Wilkinson's autobiography Jonny and Paul Kimmage's Engage , a superb biography of the paralysed rugby player Matt Hampson, are shortlisted for Rugby Book of the Year.   The Breaks are Off , the autobiography of Graeme Swann, is another double nomination, listed among the contenders for Cricket Book of the Year. The awards will be announced at the Savoy Hotel in London on May 21, after which sports book fans will be able to vote for one or other of the category winners to determine the overall Sports Book of the Year for 2012. A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke Author: Ronald Reng

SNOOKER BOOKS Willie Thorne: Taking A Punt On My Life Published by Vision Sports Publishing What’s it about? At the peak of his fame, former snooker star Willie Thorne led a life that presented him pretty much as a walking caricature. A leading player during snooker’s boom years in the 1980s, he did everything that the media wanted from the central characters of their new back page soap opera. He worked hard at the table and partied hard away from it; he made good money from his skill with a cue and if it didn’t last him long there was plenty more where it had come from as sponsors and television executives queued up for a piece of the action. He revelled in his celebrity, indulged his hangers-on and when there was female attention to be enjoyed he was not inclined to resist.

It is more than 20 years since Alex Higgins took part in his last World Snooker Championships and yet still there is no player to whom the popularity of that tournament -- and the game in general -- owes a greater legacy. His flamboyant playing style and his chaotic life away from the table were the perfect combination as the sport sought to move away from dingy clubs into the nation’s front rooms in the latter half of the 1970s, when television viewers and tabloid newspaper readers developed a taste for sport laced with soap opera. He gave the game its blueprint for success, encouraging countless young men not only to strive for brilliance with a cue but to live a little on the wild side, too, perhaps. There have been better players (though it should not be forgotten that he won the world title twice) but no bigger character, no one to command the attention of the public in the same way, whether for his extraordinary skills or his volatile temperament. Higgins destroyed himse