en-US Tue, 06 May 2025 08:42:20 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 215148690 'Extensively researched and wonderfully written, Joey's book deserves to be read by all.' Martin O'Neill

'This colourful book is a treat for anyone interested in both football and politics.' Patrick Maguire, The Times

'One of the most original and innovative football books in some time, a "Parts Unknown" for the game.' Miguel Delaney, Independent

'Smart, warm and original... it will make politics nerds think differently about football, and football fans think differently about the world.' Matt Chorley, BBC Radio 5 Live

______________________________

Twenty-Two Football Shirts that explain the world, geopolitics and the biggest stories of our time

Football is the world's most popular sport, and the shirts worn by teams and their supporters are its greatest means of cultural expression. Every year clubs launch new kits with increasingly extravagant marketing campaigns and convoluted explanations of how their designs reflect their history and local community. But football shirts are much more than just a symbol of which club we support. A seemingly innocuous combination of colours, sponsor logos and materials can all reflect the social values, financial struggles and political ideologies of the day, as geopolitical issues increasingly seep into every aspect of the game.

Investigative journalist Joey D'Urso has travelled across the globe, combining on-the-ground reporting with unparalleled analysis to collate a list of the twenty-two football shirts that best explain the modern world.� More Than A Shirt will take fans on a journey from Birmingham to Belgrade and onto Medellin and Mumbai, outlining how we can see the war in Ukraine in the shirt of Schalke in Germany or China's foreign policy in West Bromwich Albion's; how the shirts of state-owned clubs are used for sportswashing; and why the French national kit embodies worldwide migration patterns.

A compelling and eye-opening exploration, More Than A Shirt  is essential reading for any football fan and will change the way you think about the beautiful game's most universal symbol.]]> 0 Joey D'Urso 1399622838 Kieran 2 2025, football-writing 2.00
author: Joey D'Urso
name: Kieran
average rating: 2.00
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: 2025, football-writing
review:

]]> 144441703 0 Michael Layton Kieran 1 2025 1.00
author: Michael Layton
name: Kieran
average rating: 1.00
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2025/05/01
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: 2025
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]]> 223706406 Join acclaimed football writer Chris Lee on a journey of discovery around Ireland to learn about one of the world’s oldest soccer cultures.

How did Association football � denounced as a ‘foreign game� by some � fair after the traumatic split of 1921?Who were the pioneering Irish players and coaches that helped spread the game around the world?What is the matchday experience like for groundhoppers?What’s happening in Irish women’s football today?Eager for answers, Chris travels around the island in search of historical stadiums, lost clubs, vibrant fan cultures, symbolic murals and more. From the tifos of Dublin’s oldest derby to George Best’s living room, Chris talks to fans, historians and academics to get the inside track on the Irish football story.

Along the way, Chris uncovers a complex tale of politics, identity and division, but also one of hope, reconciliation and glory.]]> 272 Chris Lee 1801509476 Kieran 0 currently-reading, 2025 4.38
author: Chris Lee
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: currently-reading, 2025
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]]> 44571024
In 2016, Mariam Khan read that David Cameron had linked the radicalisation of Muslim men to the 'traditional submissiveness' of Muslim women. Mariam felt pretty sure she didn't know a single Muslim woman who would describe herself that way. Why was she hearing about Muslim women from people who were neither Muslim nor female?

Years later the state of the national discourse has deteriorated even further, and Muslim women's voices are still pushed to the fringes - the figures leading the discussion are white and male.

Taking one of the most politicised and misused words associated with Muslim women and Islamophobia, It's Not About the Burqa is poised to change all that. Here are voices you won't see represented in the national news headlines: 18 Muslim women speaking frankly about the hijab and wavering faith, about love and divorce, about feminism, queer identity, sex and the twin threats of a disapproving community and a racist country. Funny, warm, sometimes sad and often angry, each of these essays is a passionate declaration, and each essay is calling time on the oppression, the lazy stereotyping, the misogyny and the Islamophobia.

What does it mean, exactly, to be a Muslim woman in the West today? According to the media, it's all about the burqa.

Here's what it's really about.]]> 7 Mariam Khan 1509886419 Kieran 0 currently-reading, 2025 4.04 2019
author: Mariam Khan
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: currently-reading, 2025
review:

]]> 228446591 Written by our greatest sportswriter, three time winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, Duncan Hamilton.

Answered Prayers is a definitive history of the most famous event in British sporting, the triumph of the 1966 England world cup football team and the disastrous effect that victory had on the game.]]> Duncan Hamilton Kieran 4 2025, football-writing 4.00
author: Duncan Hamilton
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves: 2025, football-writing
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]]> 231371879 David Goldblatt, award-winning author of The Ball is Round

'This is an important book'
Simon Kuper, bestselling author of Soccernomics, Chums and Barça

'Compelling'
The Times


In 2034, Saudi Arabia will host the men's FIFA World Cup and mark the culmination of Mohammed bin Salman's ambitious plan to modernise Saudi Arabia, a kingdom of unfathomable wealth at the heart of the Islamic world, which is only now emerging from nearly a century of self-isolation. How did we get here? Why would a country spend tens of billions of dollars, perhaps even hundreds of billions in the long run, to buy and control sport?

Engulfed is a story about ambition, family rivalries, extreme wealth, power, murder and disinformation. It is also the story of dictatorship, political corruption and, at its root, how sport - football, yes, but also golf, boxing and even e-sports - became a vital geopolitical tool for Saudi Arabia.

Drawing on Montague's exclusive first-hand interviews from his extensive travels across Saudi Arabia, the US, the north-east of England, Spain, Turkey and beyond, Engulfed uncovers how the House of Saud zeroed in on the political power of sport, using it both as a powerful political tool of influence and as a way to rectify the PR damage caused by one of the most infamous assassinations in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.]]> 304 James Montague Kieran 4 2025, football-writing 4.00 2025
author: James Montague
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: 2025, football-writing
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]]> 44798272 320 Colin Millar 1785315242 Kieran 2 2025 4.01
author: Colin Millar
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 56161594
It was only through Amelia Gentleman's tenacious investigative and campaigning journalism that it emerged that thousands were in Paulette's position. What united them was that they had all arrived in the UK from the Commonwealth as children in the 1950s and 1960s. In The Windrush Betrayal, Gentleman tells the story of the scandal and exposes deeply disturbing truths about modern Britain.]]> 11 Amelia Gentleman Kieran 3 2025 4.38 2019
author: Amelia Gentleman
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 211003887 Leading football journalist Nick Miller lifts the lid on football club the defining issue shaping the modern game.

The landscape of football club ownership has changed. Long gone are the days when clubs were dominated by local factory proprietors or millionaire boyhood fans. This clear, insightful and thought-provoking guide provides serious football fans with a unique and timely account of modern football the central issue shaping the game.

Fascinating for supporters looking to understand their club's and its rivals' strategy and methods, and those curious about finance and power in football, Who Owns Football? reveals how the game's custodians operate. Football club owners can take teams to the heights of the Champions League or financial oblivion. Still, in a world of super leagues, rapidly escalating wages, transfer fees, Financial Fair Play and an increasingly profitable women's game, they tread a precarious tightrope. This book relates the jeopardy, strategies, transformative successes and horror stories as it uncovers the complex world of football finance.

Who Owns Football? lifts the lid on the inner workings of modern club ownership. Full of captivating tales, fascinating characters, high finance and shady deals, it examines the forces at play and discusses how today's football club ownership models face up to an impending crisis in the game.]]> 256 Nick Miller 1399417169 Kieran 3 2025 4.00
author: Nick Miller
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 198211665
In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer looks past these outdated conceptions and toward a more comprehensive history, one that acknowledges border guards, secret police and brutal repression, as well as comprehensive welfare, unprecedented gender equality and the deconstruction of class privilege. There were those who were silenced, she argues, and also those who felt they had been given a voice for the first time. Both deserve to be heard today.

Based on first-hand accounts and extensive new research, Hoyer presents the history of the GDR as never before -as a kaleidoscope of perspectives, experiences and stories. From the ashes of the Second World War to the fall of the USSR, this is the definitive story of the other Germany, the one beyond the Wall.]]> 496 Katja Hoyer Kieran 3 2025 4.43 2023
author: Katja Hoyer
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 207567665 400 Tim Rich 1529428572 Kieran 2 2025 4.33
author: Tim Rich
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 123146517 416 Jon Spurling 1785907867 Kieran 3 2025, football-writing 3.33
author: Jon Spurling
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.33
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: 2025, football-writing
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]]> 195391754
French football is an a puzzling jumble of brilliance and farce, flair and frailty, stunning success and abject failure. Its domestic league is mocked on social media as an uncompetitive 'Farmers League' and its clubs derided for underachieving in European competition. But France have reached four of the past seven men's World Cup finals, French players star week in, week out for the world's grandest clubs and the very best of French football � the roar of the Vélodrome, the glamour of the Parc des Princes, the shimmering brilliance of Zinédine Zidane, Éric Cantona and Kylian Mbappé � stands comparison with anything the sport has to offer. When it comes to scandal, meanwhile, the French are the best in the business, be it sensational match-fixing affairs, squabbles over sex tapes or meltdowns within the national squad.

In this fascinating and exhaustively researched book, the first of its kind in the English language, Tom Williams brings to life French football's chequered coming of age over the last 40 years. He details how the starry-eyed romanticism that characterised the national team in the early 1980s gave way to an Italian-style pragmatism that would lead Les Bleus to the summit of the international game in the late 1990s and examines how a succession of star-studded club sides grappled with the thorny (and distinctly un-French) notion of how to win. By delving into French football's rich history, he also explains the myriad ways - tactical, technical and cultural - in which France has shaped the game's evolution around the world..

Featuring exclusive interviews with great figures of the French game such as Alain Giresse, Jean-Pierre Papin, Emmanuel Petit and Blaise Matuidi, and with a cast of characters that also includes Michel Platini, Thierry Henry, Karim Benzema, Chris Waddle and Lionel Messi, it's a book no football fan will want to miss.]]> 288 Tom Williams 1399403958 Kieran 3 2025, football-writing 4.17
author: Tom Williams
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: 2025, football-writing
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]]> 221978852 The insider account of the data revolution that has swept through the modern football world written by one of its key architects, Ian Graham.

Between 2012 and 2023, Ian Graham worked as Liverpool FC's Director of Research. His tenure coincided with the club’s greatest period of success since the 1980s, including winning the Premier League in 2020 � Liverpool’s first league title after an agonising 29 years.

Here for the first time, Graham reveals the fascinating data that informed some of the club’s most pivotal moments of the past decade, from the appointment of Jurgen Klopp as manager in 2015 to the signing of Mohamed Salah in 2017. Along the way, he shares groundbreaking insight into the modern game, including how a season largely played behind closed doors transformed our understanding of a home-side advantage, or why the GOAT (greatest of all time) might not be who you think. And, in a game that is increasingly dominated by an elite few oil-backed teams, Graham charts a path for the future where a data-savvy underdog will always find their competitive edge.


Listening Length: 9 hours and 31 minutes]]> 10 Ian Graham Kieran 2 2025 4.00
author: Ian Graham
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 210057669 Toni Mount Kieran 3 2025 3.60 2014
author: Toni Mount
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 65215494
'Witty and wise.' Clare Balding

'Brilliant. Blows the lid off football. Hilarious, detailed and insightful.' Alan Davies

---

Ever dreamed of setting up your own football club?

Join the team behind The Price of Football podcast as they start a (fictional) football club and discover what's really going on behind the scenes of the beautiful game.

Buying a football club will set you back a few quid, but you've also got to pass the Premier League and EFL's 'fit and proper persons test'. That all seems like a bit of a faff to the team behind the award-winning podcast The Price of Football, so acclaimed comedy writer Kevin Day, football finance expert Kieran Maguire and producer Guy Kilty start an imaginary club instead.

In Unfit and Improper Person s they take West Park Rovers on a hilarious journey from the lowest level of the FA pyramid right up to the English Football League, the Premier League and, if fortune favours the fictional, into the heart of Europe.

At least that's the plan, but inevitably they face a few challenges along the way. Where to find a shirt sponsor? What should the mascot be � is a dog called Rover too obvious? Can they pay the women's team the same as the men's team? (Spoiler hardly anyone else does.) And how can they get Messi to the Kleanwell Stadium next season, like they promised the fans?

Roofing over the toilets, paying the electric on the floodlights, salary caps, parachute payments and avoiding bankruptcy, never mind relegation � owning a football club isn't all about stuffing prawn sarnies and quaffing champagne in the directors' box.

Unfit and Improper Persons is informed, funny and, thanks to exclusive interviews with those who've been there, done that, it lays bare the labyrinthine world of football finance.]]> 304 Kevin Day 1399407546 Kieran 2 2025 4.13
author: Kevin Day
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.13
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 32930593 Black and British, award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga offers readers a rich and revealing exploration of the extraordinarily long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony and contemporary interviews, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination and Shakespeare's Othello.

It reveals that behind the South Sea Bubble was Britain's global slave-trading empire and that much of the great industrial boom of the nineteenth century was built on American slavery. It shows that Black Britons fought at Trafalgar and in the trenches of the First World War. Black British history can be read in stately homes, street names, statues and memorials across Britain and is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation.]]> 624 David Olusoga Kieran 3 2025 4.55 2016
author: David Olusoga
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 205757909 Bring Me that Horizon is a fascinating quest into the heart and soul of Portuguese football.

Journeying across its landscape, from old and forgotten bastions of invincibility to new, muscled industrial areas where dreams come true, the book uncovers the multiple identities of Portugal as a nation.

Whether visiting historical clubs that were miraculously brought back to life or getting to grips with the complexity of Portugal's 'Game of Thrones' fight for supremacy, the book traces a route north to south, island to island, without forgetting the profound connection with Africa and Brazil.

From Eusébio's glorious career to Cândido de Oliveira's adventures as a British intelligence agent, the book reveals a nation that already had fantastic tales to tell before it became the flavour of the month for football hipsters at the turn of the millennium. There's much more to Portugal's football heritage than Ronaldo and Mourinho.]]> 286 Miguel Lourenço Pereira 1801507791 Kieran 2 2025, football-writing 4.39
author: Miguel Lourenço Pereira
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: 2025, football-writing
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]]> 202792072
Killing Thatcher is the gripping account of how the IRA came astonishingly close to killing Margaret Thatcher and to wiping out the British Cabinet � an extraordinary assassination attempt linked to the Northern Ireland Troubles and the most daring conspiracy against the Crown since the Gunpowder Plot.

In this fascinating and compelling book, veteran journalist Rory Carroll retraces the road to the infamous Brighton bombing in 1984 � an incident that shaped the political landscape in the UK for decades to come. He begins with the infamous execution of Lord Mountbatten in 1979 � for which the IRA took full responsibility � before tracing the rise of Margaret Thatcher, her response to the ‘Troubles� in Ireland and the chain of events that culminated in the hunger strikes of 1981 and the death of 10 IRA men, including Bobby Sands. From that moment on Thatcher became an enemy of the IRA � and the organisation swore revenge.

Opening with a brilliantly-paced prologue that introduces bomber Patrick Magee in the build up to the incident, Carroll sets out to deftly explore the intrigue before and after the assassination attempt � with the story spanning three continents, from pubs and palaces, safe houses and interrogation rooms, hotels and barracks. On one side, an elite IRA team aided by a renegade priest, US-raised funds and Libya’s Qaddafi and on the other, intelligence officers, police detectives, informers and bomb disposal officers. An exciting narrative that blends true crime with political history, this is the first major book to investigate the Brighton attack.]]> 12 Rory Carroll Kieran 3 2025 4.25 2023
author: Rory Carroll
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 3205049 394 Paul Canoville 0755316452 Kieran 0 currently-reading, 2025 3.99 2008
author: Paul Canoville
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: currently-reading, 2025
review:

]]> 22702808
If England is the birthplace of football then Brazil - the five-time World Cup winners and home of Pelé, Romário, Ronaldo, Neymar and the rest - is the heart and soul of the game.

Jogo Bonito - meaning 'the beautiful game' - takes you on a journey through the Wild West of Brazilian football. On the way we meet an eclectic cast of characters, such as Mario Zagallo, the four-time World Cup winner; the long, lost son of Garrincha; Brazil's best-loved bad boy player turned politician, Romário; and many more. We take a trip to an away game with the country's most violent hooligans, visit the home of the world's largest amateur football tournament and enjoy a boozy dinner with South America's most famous commentator - he of 'goooooooool' fame.

Jogo Bonito is a history, a travelogue and a gonzo-style report into a country which has the sixth biggest economy in the world and yet questionable records on education, healthcare and corruption. The result is a book that not only tells the story of Brazilian football, but also of today's Brazil.]]> 288 Henrik Brandão Jönsson Kieran 3 2025 4.08 2013
author: Henrik Brandão Jönsson
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 18990222 exists and functions in Brazil, both on and off the pitch.]]> 274 Paulo Fontes 1849044171 Kieran 2 2025 2.50 2014
author: Paulo Fontes
name: Kieran
average rating: 2.50
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 54368821 In contrast, there are places where the robust implementation of policing alternatives—such as legalization, restorative justice, and harm reduction—has led to a decrease in crime, spending, and injustice. The best solution to bad policing may be an end to policing.

]]> Alex S. Vitale 1977362176 Kieran 4 2025 4.20 2017
author: Alex S. Vitale
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 219292872 What are the myths--and reality--behind the state of Israel?
Ilan Pappe is one of the most outspoken and radical thinkers writing on the history of Israel. In this groundbreaking and controversial book he examines ten of the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel. Once and for all he explodes the myths that justify the rights of the Israeli state, asking,
- Was Palestine an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration?
- Were the Jews a people without a land?
- Is there no difference between Zionism and Judaism?
- Is Zionism not a colonial project of occupation?
- Did the Palestinians leave their homeland voluntarily in 1948?
- Was the June 1967 War a war of -no choice-?
- Is Israel the only democracy in the Middle East?
- Were the failed Oslo negotiations of 1992 the PLO's fault?
- Was it a question of national security to bomb Gaza?
- Is the Two States Solution still achievable?
Written for the general reader, this book will prompt a huge, and necessary, debate.]]> 1 Ilan Pappé Kieran 3 2025 4.00 2017
author: Ilan Pappé
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 861336 560 Jerry White 1845951263 Kieran 3 2025 3.97 2001
author: Jerry White
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 199473943 Ramon Usall shows that almost no contemporary historical episode is not reflected in the trajectory of a football club somewhere. Taking the reader on a whistle-stop tour of the events that have defined the last century, we encounter anti-colonial rebellions, class conflict, Nazism, communism, national liberation struggles, and sectarian strife.
Full of anecdotes, little-known facts, and illustrations, Kicking Off Around the World mixes the grassroots with the greatest of all the unknown and the unforgettable. It looks at the women's game, football during the war in Ukraine, and stories of clubs in Britain and the USA, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.]]> 320 Ramon Usall i Santa 0745348793 Kieran 2 2024 3.69 2017
author: Ramon Usall i Santa
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 388538 288 David Winner 0747547386 Kieran 2 2024, football-writing 3.54 2005
author: David Winner
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2005
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 213718831 220 Willy Vlautin Kieran 4 2025 4.31 2024
author: Willy Vlautin
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> 59087943 A major history of the rise and fall of Italian fascism: a dark tale of violence, ideals and a country at war.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the seeds of fascism were sown in Italy. While the country reeled in shock, a new movement emerged from the chaos: one which preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland; one which promised to build a 'New Roman Empire', and make Italy a great power again.

Wearing black shirts and wielding guns, knives and truncheons, the proponents of fascism embraced a climate of violence and rampant masculinity. Led by Mussolini, they would systematically destroy the organisations of the left, murdering and torturing anyone who got in their way.

In Blood and Power, acclaimed historian John Foot draws on decades of research to chart the turbulent years between 1915 and 1945. Using the accounts of real people - fascists, anti-fascists, communists, anarchists, victims, perpetrators and bystanders - he tells the story of fascism and its legacy which still, disturbingly, reverberates to this day.]]> 352 John Foot 1408897946 Kieran 3 2024 3.68 2022
author: John Foot
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 58578152
London in the eighteenth century had risen from the ashes. The city and its people had been brought to the brink by the Great Fire of 1666. But the century that followed was a period of vigorous expansion, of scientific and artistic genius, of blossoming reason, civility, elegance and manners. It was also an age of extremes: of starving poverty and exquisite fashion, of joy and despair, of sentiment and cruelty.

In Jerry White’s acclaimed history of London’s magnificent and boisterous rebirth we witness the astonishing drama of daily life in the midst of this burgeoning city.]]> Jerry White Kieran 3 2024 3.33 2012
author: Jerry White
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 62914481 All to Play For, the anticipated follow-up edition to Going for The Rise of Rishi Sunak

PRAISE FOR GOING FOR BROKE

"The fullest account yet written of Sunak the rising star." � Andrew Gimson, ConservativeHome

"Clearly written, lively and perceptive, and contains much insight on the complex world of Tory politics." � Vernon Bogdanor, Prospect Magazine

***

The speed of Rishi Sunak's advance to 10 Downing Street is without precedent in modern British politics. In mid-2019, he was an unknown junior minister; seven months later, he became Chancellor of the Exchequer; and by October 2022, he had secured the highest office in the land. Aged forty-two, he was Britain's youngest Prime Minister in more than 200 years.

Michael Ashcroft's biography � first published in 2020 and now fully revised and updated � charts Sunak's ascent to the University of Oxford, the City of London, Silicon Valley and Westminster before assuming the most powerful job in the country in chaotic circumstances.

It is the story of a clever and hard-working son of immigrant parents who marries an heiress and makes a fortune of his own; a polished southerner who wins over the voters of North Yorkshire; a fiscal conservative who becomes the biggest-spending Chancellor in history; and a fastidious political operator tasked with reuniting the Conservative Party and repairing an economy in flux.

Casting new light on Sunak's tense working relationship with his predecessor, Boris Johnson, All to Play For shows what makes him tick ahead of a general election whose outcome will have profound consequences for Britain.]]> 483 Tom Harper 1785907697 Kieran 2 2024 4.17
author: Tom Harper
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 207619605 Kleptopia meets Soccernomics - The definitive account of how sportswashing has become endemic in modern footballAs the 2022 World Cup in Qatar drew to a close, there was a bitter undercurrent to Argentina's triumph. Throughout the tournament, numerous allegations of sportswashing and financial misconduct had been made against the state of Qatar, moving what had previously been a smaller conversation into the worldwide spotlight. The question had been asked, who really owns and runs football?Journeying from Abu Dhabi to Newcastle, and onto London, Paris, Moscow and New York in search of the answers, Miguel Delaney follows the threads that surround the allegations of sportswashing and misconduct in the beautiful game. The result is an exploration of how European football clubs have been bought by some of the world's wealthiest businessmen and state-backed corporations. Drawing on exclusive interviews and unprecedented access to key stakeholders, Miguel has produced an all-encompassing exposé of modern footballs highest echelons. From Neymar's £198 million transfer to Paris Saint-Germain and Abu Dhabi's construction empire in Manchester, to failed Financial Fair Play constraints and the dawn of the European Super League, this is an authoritative, riveting and eye-opening book that shows how football has been taken away from the fans and is now a tool for the world's elite.]]> 512 Miguel Delaney 1399619438 Kieran 3 2024 4.31
author: Miguel Delaney
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 52783514 Queer City, he looks at the metropolis in a whole new way � through the history and experiences of its gay population.

In Roman Londinium the penis was worshipped and homosexuality was considered admirable. The city was dotted with lupanaria (‘wolf dens� or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops and clergy, monks and missionaries. His rule was accompanied by the first laws against queer practices.

What followed was an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure, from the notorious Normans, whose military might depended on masculine loyalty, and the fashionable female transvestism of the 1620s; to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early 1800s and the ‘gay plague� in the 1980s.

Ackroyd takes us right into this hidden city, celebrating its diversity, thrills and energy on the one hand; but reminding us of its very real terrors, dangers and risks on the other. In a city of superlatives, it is perhaps this endless sexual fluidity and resilience that epitomise the real triumph of London.

'Peter Ackroyd is the greatest living chronicler of London' Independent]]> Peter Ackroyd Kieran 3 2024, lgbtq 3.45 2017
author: Peter Ackroyd
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: 2024, lgbtq
review:

]]> 62915605
“Identity politics� is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom. But the “identity politics� so compulsively referenced bears little resemblance to the concept as first introduced by the radical Black feminist Combahee River Collective. While the Collective articulated a political viewpoint grounded in their own position as Black lesbians with the explicit aim of building solidarity across lines of difference, “identity politics� is now frequently weaponized as a means of closing ranks around ever-narrower conceptions of group interests.

But the trouble, Olúfẹ�mi O. Táíwò deftly argues, is not with “identity politics� itself. Through a substantive engagement with the global Black radical tradition, Táíwò identifies the process by which a radical concept can be stripped of its political substance and become the victim of elite capture—deployed by political, social, and economic elites in the service of their own interests.

Táíwò’s crucial intervention both elucidates this complex process and helps us move beyond a binary of “class� vs. “race.� By rejecting elitist identity politics in favor of a constructive politics of radical solidarity, he advances the possibility of organizing across our differences in the urgent struggle for a better world.]]> 4 Olúfẹ�mi O. Táíwò Kieran 2 2024 3.87 2022
author: Olúfẹ�mi O. Táíwò
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 220947562
Best-selling journalist Antony Loewenstein, author of Disaster Capitalism, uncovers this largely hidden world in a global investigation with secret documents, revealing interviews and on-the-ground reporting. This book shows in-depth, for the first time, how Palestine has become the perfect laboratory for the Israeli military-techno complex: surveillance, home demolitions, indefinite incarceration and brutality to the hi-tech tools that drive the 'Start-up Nation'. From the Pegasus software that hacked Jeff Bezos' and Jamal Khashoggi's phones, the weapons sold to the Myanmar army that has murdered thousands of Rohingyas and drones used by the European Union to monitor refugees in the Mediterranean who are left to drown.

Israel has become a global leader in spying technology and defense hardware that fuels the globe's most brutal conflicts. As ethno-nationalism grows in the 21st century, Israel has built the ultimate model.


Listening Length: 9 hours and 59 minutes]]> 10 Antony Loewenstein Kieran 4 2024 4.22 2023
author: Antony Loewenstein
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 61312005
In March 2021, an obscure financial technology company called Greensill Capital collapsed, going into administration. As it unravelled, a multibillion-dollar scandal emerged that would shake the very foundations of the British political system, drawing in swiss bankers, global CEOs, and world leaders. At the centre was an Australian financier named Lex Greensill. With a globe-circling narrative full of scandal and intrigue, Pyramid of Lies reveals how the grubby world of shadow banking really operates.]]> 352 Duncan Mavin 1529088887 Kieran 3 2024 3.95 2022
author: Duncan Mavin
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 216866260 1 Raja Shehadeh Kieran 3 2024, palestine 4.29 2024
author: Raja Shehadeh
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: 2024, palestine
review:

]]> 39781983
Blending history, memoir and individual experiences, Afua Hirsch reveals the identity crisis at the heart of Britain today. Far from affecting only minority people, Britain is a nation in denial about its past and its present. We believe we are the nation of abolition, but forget we are the nation of slavery. We sit proudly at the apex of the Commonwealth, but we flinch from the legacy of the Empire. We are convinced that fairness is one of our values, but that immigration is one of our problems.

Brit(ish) is the story of how and why this came to be, and an urgent call for change.]]> 12 Afua Hirsch 1473554934 Kieran 2 2024 4.57 2018
author: Afua Hirsch
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 59224944
Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than 1% of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarised 'debate', which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice.

In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system, and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond.

The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalised people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.]]> Shon Faye 0241529263 Kieran 4 2024 4.47 2021
author: Shon Faye
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 204817795 The story of the recent uprisings that sought to change the world - and what comes next
Ìý
From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. IF WE BURNÌýis a stirring work of history built around a single, vital question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for?
Ìý
From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine’s Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. He draws on four years of research and hundreds of interviews conducted around the world, as well as his own strange experiences in Brazil, where a progressive-led protest explosion led to an extreme-right government that torched the Amazon.
Ìý
Careful investigation reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change is gravely misguided. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future.

12 hrs. 54 min.]]> 13 Vincent Bevins Kieran 4 2024 4.08
author: Vincent Bevins
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.08
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 200128369 WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTION

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, The Economist, Time, The New Republic, and the Financial Times.

Immersive and gripping, an intimate story of a deadly accident outside Jerusalem that unravels a tangle of lives, loves, enmities, and histories over the course of one revealing, heartbreaking day.

Five-year-old Milad Salama is excited for a school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On the way, his bus collides with a semitrailer. His father, Abed, gets word of the crash and rushes to the site. The scene is chaos—the children have been taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank; some are missing, others cannot be identified. Abed sets off on an odyssey to learn Milad’s fate. It is every parent’s worst nightmare, but for Abed it is compounded by the maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must navigate because he is Palestinian. He is on the wrong side of the separation wall, holds the wrong ID to pass the military checkpoints, and has the wrong papers to enter the city of Jerusalem. Abed’s quest to find Milad is interwoven with the stories of a cast of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and histories unexpectedly converge.

In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Nathan Thrall—hailed for his “severe allergy to conventional wisdom� (Time)—offers an indelibly human portrait of the struggle over Israel/Palestine and a new understanding of the tragic history and reality of one of the most contested places on earth.]]> Nathan Thrall Kieran 4 2024 3.75 2023
author: Nathan Thrall
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 61040428
In this funny and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective. He examines each country's colonial heritage, and explores a wide range of subjects, from chronicling urban life in Lagos and the lively West African rivalry over who makes the best Jollof rice, to the story of democracy in seven dictatorships and the dangers of stereotypes in popular culture.

By turns intimate and political, Africa Is Not A Country brings the story of the continent towards reality, celebrating the energy and fabric of its different cultures and communities in a way that has never been done before.]]> 9 Dipo Faloyin Kieran 2 africa, 2024 4.22 2022
author: Dipo Faloyin
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: africa, 2024
review:

]]> 48677696
Cairo’s Resistance and Revolution in Egypt’s Football Culture explores how football communities offer ways of belonging and instill meaning in everyday life. Close asks us to rethink the labels ‘fans� or ‘hooligans� and what such terms might really mean. He argues that the role of the body is essential to understanding the cultural practices of the Cairo Ultras, and that the physicality of the stadium rituals and acerbic chants were key expressions that resonated with many Egyptians. Along the way, the book skewers media clichés and retraces revolutionary politics and social networks to consider the capacity of sport to emancipate through performances on the football terraces.]]> 200 Ronnie Close 9774169212 Kieran 3 3.92
author: Ronnie Close
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2021, football-writing, mena, 2024
review:

]]> 211004009 320 Chris Blackhurst 1035011190 Kieran 3 2024, football-writing 4.18
author: Chris Blackhurst
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/20
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 43885949
Towards the beginning of the twenty-first century, Borussia Dortmund were on the verge of going out of business. Now they are an international phenomenon - one of the most popular clubs and fastest-growing football brands in the world. Every fortnight, an incredible number of foreigners eschew their own clubs and domestic leagues and travel to Dortmund to watch football, while people from all corners of the world dream of doing the same - of standing on the largest terrace in the world, the Yellow Wall.

How did this happen? How could a club that hasn't won a European trophy in twenty years so thoroughly capture people's imaginations?

Building the Yellow Wall tells the story of Dortmund's roller-coaster ride from humble beginnings and lean decades to the revolution under Jürgen Klopp and subsequent amazing success and popularity. But it also tells the story of those people who have done as much for the club's profile as any player, coach or chairman - Dortmund's unique supporters.]]> 288 Uli Hesse 1474606253 Kieran 3 2024, football-writing 4.36 2016
author: Uli Hesse
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 69337416 12 Ilan Pappé Kieran 4 2024 4.25 2016
author: Ilan Pappé
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 60310736
Net Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution takes readers on a tour across the world and throughout soccer history, introducing the many people who have attempted to shine a light onto and innovate a sport that, in many ways, is still stuck in the Dark Ages. This deep dive into the rise of analytics in soccer—a sport where tradition reigns supreme—shows how revolutionary tactics and underexplored metrics are breaking the beautiful game wide open.

By exploring how massive institutions built on billions of dollars can function for so long without any kind of introspection—and what happens when people from the outside attempt to question the status quo—author Ryan O’Hanlon shows how time and again experts, managers, coaches, players, and fans feel they know the best approach for any given team or player, and yet get undermined by the complexity of the game—and human behavior.

To tell this globe-trekking story, O’Hanlon takes readers inside the front offices and analytics departments of the top professional leagues� most cutting-edge clubs and profiles a misfit cast of number-crunchers, behavioral economists, tech insiders, and managers all working to move beyond the philosophical side of soccer and uncover the hard truths behind possession, goals, and developing talent.

“Ryan O’Hanlon pulls off a remarkable trick in Net Gains : he writes about the evolution of soccer in a way that somehow feels both romantic without being blind and analytical without being cold.� �#1 New York Times bestselling author Shea Serrano]]> 288 Ryan O'Hanlon 1419758918 Kieran 2 2024, football-writing 4.18 2022
author: Ryan O'Hanlon
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 60525198 196 Jonathan Wilson Kieran 4 2021, blizzard 3.71 2021
author: Jonathan Wilson
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2021/12/31
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: 2021, blizzard
review:

]]> 60161039 194 Jonathan Wilson Kieran 3 2021, blizzard 3.69
author: Jonathan Wilson
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2021/09/21
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: 2021, blizzard
review:

]]> 53177399 196 Jonathan Wilson Kieran 3 2020, blizzard 3.95
author: Jonathan Wilson
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/03/22
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: 2020, blizzard
review:

]]> 54871805 196 Jonathan Wilson Kieran 3 2020, blizzard 3.86
author: Jonathan Wilson
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2020/08/12
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: 2020, blizzard
review:

]]> 208518143 224 Kevin Sampson 183726189X Kieran 3 2024, football-writing 3.40 1998
author: Kevin Sampson
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 201557720 Pablo Escobar had one obsession. Not drugs, not money, not power... football.

Narcoball uncovers the incredible story of Colombian football during the early 1990s - shaped by drug lords, rivalries, and ambition. It uncovers a football empire backed by cartels - where victory was a currency of its own, and defeat, a matter of life and death.

This is a different story of Pablo Escobar and his rivals. A tale of clandestine deals that reshaped Medellin's football clubs, where fortunes were won and lost. It unveils the extraordinary bonds that Escobar forged with football's luminaries and why his influence reached unprecedented heights, leading to the astonishing 5-0 victory over Argentina in Buenos Aires, the murder of referees, and the ruthless coercion of officials culminating in the killing of Andrés Escobar - the Colombian defender who paid the ultimate price for an own goal in the 1994 World Cup. It is also an examination of a people's relationship with both the sport and the nefarious leaders that brought both pride and terror to their communities.

Set against the U.S War on Drugs, international threats, and government clampdowns, this is a gripping exploration of Colombian club football under Escobar's rise and fall.]]> 293 David Arrowsmith 1788405269 Kieran 3 2024, football-writing 4.10
author: David Arrowsmith
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/13
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 18160347
The lives of these characters intersect as they look for meaning in desperate times.]]> 320 Willy Vlautin 0062276751 Kieran 4 3.89 2014
author: Willy Vlautin
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2013/10/04
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: 2013, bleak, heartbreaking, americana
review:

]]> 30335538
The Premier League academy of his boyhood has let him go. At nineteen, Tom finds himself playing for a tiny club in a town he has never heard of. But as he navigates his isolation and his desperate need for recognition, a sudden and thrilling encounter offers him the promise of an escape, and Tom is forced to question whether he can reconcile his supressed desires with his dreams of success.

Leah, the captain’s wife, has almost forgotten the dreams she once held, for her career, her marriage. Moving again, as her husband is transferred from club to club, she is lost, disillusioned with where life has taken her.

A Natural delves into the heart of a professional football club: the pressure, the loneliness, the threat of scandal, the fragility of the body and the struggle, on and off the pitch, with conforming to the person that everybody else expects you to be.]]> 352 Ross Raisin 1910702668 Kieran 5 3.66 2017
author: Ross Raisin
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2018/03/11
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 205745503 Beyond the booze and the what football really tells us about Germany, the UEFA Euro 2024 hosts

–â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä�

In summer 2024, the eyes of football fans worldwide will turn to Germany as it hosts the European Championship. For many, the country seems familiar a footballing behemoth with clubs as famous as its beer and its cars. But, if you look closer, the beautiful game can offer a deeper understanding of Europe's powerhouse.

Played in Germany takes us on a journey through modern Germany’s football heartlands in search of the issues that define it. Through the stadiums, songs and simmering resentments of football, it sheds light on a nation so diverse and divided that the only thing that really unites it is the game itself.

From the author of Sports Book Awards-shortlisted Scheisse! We're Going Up!

–â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä“â¶Ä�

PRAISE FOR PLAYED IN GERMANY

'Immaculately researched, entertainingly written' Jonathan Liew

'Vivid detail' John Kampfner

'An intimate portrait of Germany' Archie Rhind-Tutt

'Absolutely wunderbar!' Adrian Goldberg]]> 247 Kit Holden 0715655426 Kieran 2 football-writing, 2024 4.51
author: Kit Holden
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.51
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: football-writing, 2024
review:

]]> 54462630
His cocooned suburban childhood and standing at university as 'the man who couldn't quite' were unlikely preparations for such a figure. Yet Attlee was often underestimated: he won over those who compared him unfavourably to his rival, Churchill, and undercut their doubt with dry wit and proof of his steady and ethical leadership.

His political awakening volunteering in the East End of London was instrumental in redrawing his map of Britain's class and economic system. Growing up in the comfortable coda of the Victorian era, he foresaw an epoch of change - one that he was pivotal to bring about in the post-war years. After serving at Gallipoli during the First Word War he rose through the ranks of the Labour Party and during the Second World War became Britain's first Deputy Prime Minister. In 1945, in the glow of Churchill's great war victory, Attlee won the election by a landslide. Alongside Bevin, Nye and Truman, his governance saw the end of the Empire in India, the foundation of the NHS and Britain's places in NATO and the nuclear arms race.

John Bew's brilliant biography will pierce the reticence of Attlee and explore the intellectual foundations and core beliefs of one of the most important, and least understood, figures in the history of the United Kingdom. It will reveal a public servant and patriotic socialist, who never lost sight of the national interest and whose view of humanity and belief in solidarity was grafted onto the Union Jack.]]> John Bew Kieran 2 politics, 2024 3.67 2016
author: John Bew
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: politics, 2024
review:

]]> 63106454
A unique chemistry of ideas, substances, freedom of expression and dialogue across pop cultural continents created a landscape of immense and eventually shattering creativity. After 1966 nothing in the pop world would ever be the same. The 7 inch single outsold the long-player for the final time. It was the year in which the ever lasting and transient pop moment would burst forth in its most articulate, instinctive and radical way.

Jon Savage's 1966 is a monument to the year that shaped the pop future of the balance of the century. Exploring canonical artists like The Beatles, The Byrds, Velvet Underground, The Who and The Kinks, 1966 also goes much deeper into the social and cultural heart of the decade through unique archival primary sources.

Winner of the Penderyn Music Prize
A Guardian Music Book of the Year, 2015

Featuring a new foreword by David Mitchell]]> Jon Savage Kieran 3 2024 4.20 2015
author: Jon Savage
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 175651635 England's Dreaming is the ultimate book on punk, its progenitors, the Sex Pistols, and the moment they defined for music fans in England and the United States. Savage brings to life the sensational story of the meteoric rise and rapid implosion of the Pistols through layers of rich detail, exclusive interviews, and rare photographs. This fully revised and updated edition of the book covers the legacy of punk twenty-five years later and provides an account of the Pistols' 1996 reunion as well as a freshly updated discography and a completely new introduction.]]> Jon Savage Kieran 3 2024 4.12 1991
author: Jon Savage
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1991
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 197148983 From the acclaimed author of Promised You a Miracle and When the Lights Went Out, the untold story of British politics in modern times, through the triumphs and disasters of its five most radical figures.



'A breath of fresh a vivid eye for detail meets narrative pacing that seems effortless.' Morgan Jones, LabourList
‘An absorbing history of Labour’s radical left.� - Jason Cowley, Observer

The Searchers should be studied closely by anyone with a stake in British politics.� - Patrick Maguire, The Times

In the great revolutionary year of 1968, Tony Benn was a respectable Labour minister in his forties, and he was restless. While new social movements were shaking up Britain and much of the world, Westminster politics seemed stuck. It was time, he decided, for a different approach.

Over the next half century, the radicalized Benn helped forge a new left in Britain. He was joined by four other politicians, who would become comrades, collaborators and Ken Livingstone, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn.

For Andy Beckett, the story of these admired and loathed political explorers - both their sudden breakthroughs and long stretches in the wilderness - is the untold story of British politics in modern times. As he reveals, their project to create a radically more equal, liberal and democratic Britain has been much more influential than electoral history might suggest, and can be seen from the shape of our city life to the causes of our culture wars.

For their many detractors, this influence was and remains a form of extremism that must be stamped out. But as these five searchers believed, in politics there is no total victory - nor total defeat.]]> 548 Andy Beckett 0241394236 Kieran 4 2024, politics 4.32 2024
author: Andy Beckett
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: 2024, politics
review:

]]> 3275611 386 Rowan Simons 0230703720 Kieran 2 2024, football-writing 3.27 2008
author: Rowan Simons
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 131856237 ‘A radical antidote to the constraints of our current conceptualisation of mental healthâ€�ÌýDazed

‘Exposes the underlying truth that capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with our wellbeing, and teaches us how to transform the ways we understand madness, illness, and disability to build a better worldâ€�ÌýBeatrice Adler-Bolton, co-author ofÌýHealth Communism

Mental health is a political issue, but we often discuss it as a personal one. How is the current mental health crisis connected to capitalism, racism and other social issues? In a different world, how might we transform the ways that we think about mental health, diagnosis and treatment?

These are some of the big questions Micha Frazer-Carroll asks as she reveals mental health to be an urgent political concern that needs deeper understanding beyond today's 'awareness-raising' campaigns.

Exploring the history of asylums and psychiatry; the relationship between disability justice, queer liberation and mental health; art and creativity; prisons and abolition; and alternative models of care;ÌýMad WorldÌýis a radical and hopeful antidote to pathologisation, gatekeeping and the policing of imagination.

Micha Frazer-CarrollÌýis a columnist at theÌýIndependent. Micha has written forÌýVogue,ÌýHuffPost,ÌýHuck,Ìýgal-demÌýandÌýDazed. She was nominated for the Comment Awardsâ€� Fresh New Voice of the Year Award, and the Observer/Anthony Burgess Award for Arts Criticism.]]> 194 Micha Frazer-Carroll 0745346723 Kieran 4 2024 4.50 2023
author: Micha Frazer-Carroll
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/21
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 122993239 gal-dem

Islamophobia is everywhere. It is a narrative and history woven so deeply into our everyday lives that we don't even notice it - in our education, how we travel, our healthcare, legal system and at work. Behind the scenes it affects the most vulnerable, at the border and in prisons. Despite this, the conversation about Islamophobia is relegated to microaggressions and slurs.

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan reveals how Islamophobia not only lives under the skin of those who it marks, but is an international political project designed to divide people in the name of security, in order to materially benefit global stakeholders. It can only be truly uprooted when we focus not on what it is but what it does.

Tangled in TerrorÌýshows that until the most marginalized Muslims are safe, nobody is safe.]]> Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan 0745347789 Kieran 4 2024, football-writing 4.25
author: Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.25
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 63836104
In this audiobook, beautifully narrated by award-winning actor Libby Mai, Amelia Horgan poses three big questions: what is work? How does it harm us? And what can we do about it? While abolishing work altogether is not the answer, Lost in Work shows that when we are able to take control of our workplaces, we become less miserable, and can work towards the transformative goal of experimenting with 'work' as we know it.

Whether you listen on your commute, or while working from home, Lost in Work will empower you to see beyond the systematic problems you face at your job.

Listening Length: 4 hours 57 minutes 0 seconds]]> 5 Amelia Horgan 0745347797 Kieran 4 2024, non-fiction 3.90 2021
author: Amelia Horgan
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: 2024, non-fiction
review:

]]> 29157684
Rich in detail and atmosphere, Tudors is the story of Henry VIII's relentless pursuit of both the perfect wife and the perfect heir; of how the brief royal reign of the teenage king, Edward VI, gave way to the violent reimposition of Catholicism and the stench of bonfires under "Bloody Mary." It tells, too, of the long reign of Elizabeth I, which, though marked by civil strife, plots against her, and even an invasion force, finally brought stability.

Above all, it is the story of the English Reformation and the making of the Anglican Church. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, England was still largely feudal and looked to Rome for direction; at its end, it was a country where good governance was the duty of the state, not the church, and where men and women began to look to themselves for answers rather than to those who ruled them.]]> Peter Ackroyd Kieran 3 2024 3.70 2012
author: Peter Ackroyd
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/13
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 28198094 WINNER OF THE FOOTBALL BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDSSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR'This football book is about something even more important than the "beautiful game"; it is a story of the human spirit.' - Mick Hume, The Times Adrian Doherty was not a typical footballer. For one thing, he was blessed with extraordinary talent. Those who played alongside and watched him in the Manchester United youth team in the early 1990s insist he was as good as Ryan Giggs - possibly even better. Giggs, who played on the opposite wing, says he is inclined to agree.Doherty was also an eccentric - by football standards, at least. When his colleagues went to Old Trafford to watch the first team on Saturday afternoons, he preferred to take the bus into Manchester to go busking. He wore second-hand clothes, worshipped Bob Dylan, read about theology and French existentialism and wrote songs and poems. One team-mate says "it was like having Bob Dylan in a No 7 shirt".On his 17th birthday, Doherty was offered a five-year contract - unprecedented for a United youngster at that time - and told by Alex Ferguson that he was destined for stardom. But what followed over the next decade is a tale so mysterious, so shocking, so unusual, so amusing but ultimately so tragic, that you are left wondering how on earth it has been untold for so long.The stories of Doherty's contemporaries, that group of Manchester United youngsters who became known as the "Class of '92", are well known. Giggs ended up as the most decorated player in United's history; David Beckham became the most recognisable footballer on the planet; Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and others are household names. The story you don't know is about the player who, having had the world at his feet, died the day before his 27th birthday following an accident in a canal in Holland.]]> 387 Oliver Kay 1848669860 Kieran 2 2024, football-writing 4.34
author: Oliver Kay
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 40691586 A Very English Scandal is an extraordinary story of hypocrisy, deceit and betrayal at the heart of the British Establishment.]]> John Preston Kieran 4 2024 4.29 2016
author: John Preston
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/06
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 22781162
Peter Ackroyd, whose work has always been underpinned by a profound interest in and understanding of England's history, now tells the epic story of England itself.

In "Foundation," the chronicler of London and of its river, the Thames, takes us from the primeval forests of England s prehistory to the death of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, in 1509. He guides us from the building of Stonehenge to the founding of the two great glories of medieval England: common law and the cathedrals. He shows us glimpses of the country s most distant past a Neolithic stirrup found in a grave, a Roman fort, a Saxon tomb, a medieval manor house and describes in rich prose the successive waves of invaders who made England English, despite being themselves Roman, Viking, Saxon, or Norman French.

With his extraordinary skill for evoking time and place and his acute eye for the telling detail, Ackroyd recounts the story of warring kings, civil strife, and foreign wars. But he also gives us a vivid sense of how England s early people lived: the homes they built, the clothes they wore, the food they ate, even the jokes they told. All are brought vividly to life through the narrative mastery of one of Britain s finest writers."]]> 19 Peter Ackroyd 1483047792 Kieran 3 2024 3.79 2011
author: Peter Ackroyd
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/04
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 20617458
October 17th 1973: the greatest disaster in the history of English football.

All England had to do was beat Poland to qualify for the World Cup.

They didn’t.

They could only draw.

Left on the bench that night was a now forgotten genius, West Ham’s Billy Parks: beautiful, gifted and totally flawed.

Fast-forward forty years, Billy’s life is a testament to wasted talent. His liver is failing and he earns his money selling football memories on the after-dinner circuit to anyone who’ll listen and buy him a drink. His family has deserted him and his friends are tired of his lies and excuses.

But what if he could be given a second chance? What if he could go back in time and win the game for England? What if he was able to undo the pain he’d caused his loved ones?
The Council of Football Immortals can give him that chance, just as long as he can justify himself, and his life, to them.

This is the story of Billy Parks: a man who bore his genius like a dead weight and who now craves that most precious of things � the chance to put things right.]]> 262 Gareth R. Roberts 0007531516 Kieran 3 2024 4.24 2013
author: Gareth R. Roberts
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/01
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 58321049
As soccer grew globally over the 20th century and the World Cup became the zenith of the sport internationally, Africa was left trailing, both through a lack of organization and exclusion by the powers that be. In 1974, Africa's 'best' team, Zaire, were humiliated on the world stage, creating a negative perception of African soccer. Teams from Africa were often labelled naïve in their approach, but gradually African nations repaired their reputation. This led to increased participation, vastly improved players and famous victories over the world's best - culminating in the tournament being hosted on the continent for the first time in 2010. However, while great strides have been made on the pitch, greed, in-fighting, violence and the whiff of corruption behind the scenes have undermined progress. African sides are no longer naïve, but are we any closer to seeing a team from Africa lift the World Cup?]]> 256 Ibrahim Mustapha 1785317962 Kieran 2 2024 4.23
author: Ibrahim Mustapha
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/24
date added: 2024/05/06
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 55713016 * THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER *

When Peter Oborne wrote The Rise of Political Lying, looking at the growth of political falsehood under John Major and Tony Blair, he believed things had got as bad as they could be. With the arrival of Boris Johnson at No 10 in 2019 began a new and unprecedented epidemic of deceit.

In The Assault on Truth , a short and powerful new polemic, Oborne shows how Boris Johnson lied again and again in order to secure victory so he could force through Brexit in the face of parliamentary opposition. Johnson and his ministers then lied repeatedly to win the general election in December 2019. The government’s woeful response to the coronavirus pandemic has generated another wave of falsehoods, misrepresentations and fabrications.

The scale and shamelessness of the lying of the Johnson administration far exceeds the lying about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and other issues under Tony Blair. This book argues that the ruthless use of political deceit under the Johnson government is part of a wider attack on civilised values and traditional institutions across the Western world, especially by Donald Trump in the USA. The Johnson and Trump methodology of deceit is about securing power for its own ends - even when they get exposed for lying, they shrug it off as a matter of no consequence.

It matters because all Western institutions are built around the idea of integrity and accountability. This means that an assault on truth is an assault on the rule of law, state institutions and the fundamental idea of fairness, and even democracy itself. ]]> 251 Peter Oborne 1398504084 Kieran 2 2024, politics 3.90
author: Peter Oborne
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.90
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/04
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: 2024, politics
review:

]]> 53418188 'If you're concerned about the health of British democracy, read this book � it is thorough, gripping and vitally important' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland.

Democracy is in crisis, and unaccountable and untraceable flows of money are helping to destroy it.

Politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions of people on social media. Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and populists in many other countries are the beneficiaries.

Peter Geoghegan is a diligent, brilliant guide through a shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond.

He shows how antiquated electoral laws are broken with impunity, how secretive lobbying bends our politics out of shape, and how Silicon Valley tech giants have colluded in selling out democracy. Geoghegan investigates politicians, fabulously well-funded partisan think tanks, propagandists who know how to game a rigged system, and the campaigners and regulators valiantly trying to stop them.

Democracy for Sale is the story of how money, vested interests and digital skulduggery are eroding trust in democracy � and a powerful account of what must be done about it.]]> 416 Peter Geoghegan Kieran 3 2024 4.19 2020
author: Peter Geoghegan
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/11
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 35220220
When award-winning journalist Nick Davies decided to break Fleet Street's unwritten rule by investigating his own colleagues, he found that the business of reporting the truth had been slowly subverted by the mass production of ignorance.
Working with a network of off-the-record sources, Davies uncovered the story of the prestigious "Sunday" newspaper which allowed the CIA and MI6 to plant fiction in its columns; the newsroom which routinely rejects stories about black people; the respected paper that hired a professional fraudster to set up a front company to entrap senior political figures; the newspapers which support law and order while paying cash bribes to bent detectives.

Davies names and exposes the national stories which turn out to be pseudo events manufactured by the PR industry, and the global news stories which prove to be fiction generated by a new machinery of international propaganda. He shows the effect of this on a world where consumers believe a mass of stories which, in truth, are as false as the idea that the Earth is flat - from the millennium bug to the WMD in Iraq - tainting government policy, perverting popular belief.

With the help of researchers from Cardiff University, who ran a ground-breaking analysis of our daily news, Davies found most reporters, most of the time, are not allowed to dig up stories or check their facts - a profession corrupted at the core.]]> Nick Davies Kieran 2 2024 4.00 2008
author: Nick Davies
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/02
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 72577782 1 John Preston 1799971155 Kieran 4 2024 4.00 2021
author: John Preston
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/19
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 206083437 Three women were brutally murdered between early 1968 and late 1969, each after a night dancing at Glasgow’s infamous Barrowland Ballroom. Their murders were linked and ascribed to the spectre of the well-dressed, scripture-quoting killer who had apparently stalked the city’s dancehalls. The figure was never caught or identified.

But the intervening years spawned a legend that never quite lost its grip on the popular imagination of Glasgow. The killings provoked the country’s largest ever manhunt, as well as countless suspects, books, documentaries, earnest speculation, pub theorising and bouts of urban mythmaking.

In We All Go into the Dark, Francisco Garcia delves into how Bible John has morphed across generations, interrogates our collective obsession with ‘solving� historic crimes and questions why some killings are forgotten with indecent haste and why others are never permitted to be forgotten at all.]]> 0 Francisco García Kieran 3 2024, true-crime 3.33
author: Francisco García
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.33
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/04
date added: 2024/04/18
shelves: 2024, true-crime
review:

]]> 61295329 In his punchy follow-up to Moneyland, Oliver Bullough's Butler to the World unravels the dark secret of how Britain placed itself at the centre of the global offshore economy and at the service of the worst people in the world�]]> Oliver Bullough Kieran 3 2024, non-fiction 4.20 2022
author: Oliver Bullough
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/07
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: 2024, non-fiction
review:

]]> 61317977 ‘A witty, lucid investigation into one of the great political mysteries of our time: the enduring love felt by the British people for the party which regularly manages to persuade them, against all the evidence, that it has their best interests at heartâ€� JONATHAN COE,Ìýauthor ofÌýBournville
_________________________________________________________________________________

The story of the most successful political party in the world, and a nation made in its image.
Ìý
Since 2010, the Conservative Party has presided over countless corruption scandals, blundered its way through a pandemic and trapped Britain in a cycle of permanent dysfunction. This has coincided with four election wins in a row, each one with a larger share of the vote than the last. How?

The strange dissonance between the Conservativesâ€� destructive record in government and their record of victory â€� which has seen them suffer only seven major defeats in the last 150 years â€� is one of the defining riddles of British politics.ÌýTory Nation sets out to solve this puzzle.ÌýWith dazzling clarity and insight, Samuel Earle explores the roots of the current crisis and the real reasons for the Conservativesâ€� success, from their ruling class origins in the eighteenth century and their disproportionate influence on the British press to their stranglehold over national identity. He also sheds light on the Conservativesâ€� historic appeal among the working classes and why the Labour Party so often disappoints.
Ìý
Tory Nation describes the making of Britain through one party’s astonishing staying power. It’s only by reaching into our history, Earle argues, that we can understand how we got here –ÌýandÌýhow we can find a way out
_________________________________________________________________________________

'A highly readable history' Observer

'Earle has set out clearly and eloquently why our democracy is incapable of solving our political problems' ROBERT VERKAIK, author ofÌýPosh Boys

‘Eviscerating. Less a political book and more a mystery novel� i-D

'Rich, well-written and rewarding. Should be read and enjoyed by readers on the left, right and centre� DAVID EDGERTON, TLS
Ìý]]> Samuel Earle 1398522708 Kieran 3 2024, non-fiction 4.22
author: Samuel Earle
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/16
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: 2024, non-fiction
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]]> 45443174 Engines of Privilege contends that, in a society that mouths the virtues of equality of opportunity, of fairness and of social cohesion, the educational apartheid separating private schools from our state schools deploys our national educational resources unfairly and inefficiently; blocks social mobility; reproduces privilege down the generations; and underpins a damaging democratic deficit in our society.

Intrinsic to any vision of the future of Britain has to be the nature of our educational system. Yet the quality of conversation on the issue of private education remains surprisingly sterile, patchy and highly subjective.

Francis Green and David Kynaston carefully examine options for change, while drawing on the valuable lessons of history. Accessible, evidence-based and inclusive, Engines of Privilege aims to kick-start a long overdue national debate. Clear, vigorous prose is combined with forensic analysis to powerful effect, illuminating the painful contrast between the importance of private schools in British society and the near-absence of serious, policy-shaping debate.]]> Francis Green Kieran 3 2024 3.50
author: Francis Green
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/15
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> 58993078
Eleven of the fifteen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford. This narrowest of talent pools has shaped the modern country. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of Oxford University - and the friendships and worldviews it created - helped give us today's Britain, including Brexit.]]> 240 Simon Kuper 1788167384 Kieran 2 2024, non-fiction 3.91 2022
author: Simon Kuper
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: 2024, non-fiction
review:

]]> 63907036 Imperial Island shows how the end of empire and its ever-present aftermath have divided and defined Britain over the last seventy years.

'Masterful ... you won't look at Britain in the same way ever again' OWEN JONES
'Incisive, important, and incredibly timely' CAROLINE ELKINS
'An eye-opening study of the empire within' SHASHI THAROOR
'Clear, bold, refreshing' LUCY WORSLEY
'A thought-provoking delight that absolutely everyone should read' STEPHEN BUSH
'Immaculately detailed and impeccably researched' HELEN CARR

After the Second World War, Britain's overseas empire disintegrated. As white settlers from Rhodesia returned home to a country they barely recognised, Commonwealth citizens from Asia and the Caribbean migrated to a motherland that often refused to recognise them. Race riots erupted in Liverpool and Notting Hill even as communities lived and loved across the colour line. In the 1950s and 60s, imperial violence came home too, pervading the policing of immigrant communities, including their sex lives. In the decade that followed, a surge of support for the far-right inspired an invigorated anti-racist movement.
These tensions, and the imperial mindset that birthed them, have dominated Britain's relationship with itself and the world ever from the jingoism of the Falklands War to the simplistic moral equation of Band Aid, from the rise of the gap year abroad to the invasion of Iraq. Most recently, in the tragedy of Stephen Lawrence and the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics, we see how Britain's contradictory relationship with its past has undermined its self-image as a multicultural nation, helping explain the Windrush deportations and Brexit.
Drawing on a mass of new research, from personal letters to pop culture, Imperial Island tells a story of immigration and fractured identity, of social strife and communal solidarity, of people on the move and of a people wrestling with their past. It is the story that best explains Britain today.]]> 366 Charlotte Lydia Riley 1847926436 Kieran 4 2024, non-fiction 4.39
author: Charlotte Lydia Riley
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/07
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: 2024, non-fiction
review:

]]> 57324005
The British Empire ran for centuries and covered vast swathes of the world. It is, as Sanghera reveals, fundamental to understanding Britain. However, even among those who celebrate the empire there seems to be a desire not to look at it too closely - not to include the subject in our school history books, not to emphasise it too much in our favourite museums.

At a time of great division, when we are arguing about what it means to be British, Sanghera's book urges us to address this bewildering contradiction. For it is only by stepping back and seeing where we really come from that we can begin to understand who we are and what unites us.]]> Sathnam Sanghera Kieran 2 2024, non-fiction 4.06 2021
author: Sathnam Sanghera
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/15
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: 2024, non-fiction
review:

]]> 54832680 320 Steve Leach Kieran 2 football-writing, 2024 3.45
author: Steve Leach
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.45
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/03/15
shelves: football-writing, 2024
review:

]]> 61312161 288 Ronny Blaschke 1801503583 Kieran 2 2024, football-writing 4.22
author: Ronny Blaschke
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/02/29
date added: 2024/02/29
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 199489430 228 Chris Etchingham 1919624058 Kieran 2 2024, football-writing 3.83
author: Chris Etchingham
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/02/08
date added: 2024/02/08
shelves: 2024, football-writing
review:

]]> 6486543 304 Marc Bennetts 0753515717 Kieran 2 football-writing, 2024 3.85 2008
author: Marc Bennetts
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: football-writing, 2024
review:

]]> 43257639 336 Jon Henderson 1785904663 Kieran 2 football-writing, 2024 3.77
author: Jon Henderson
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.77
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: football-writing, 2024
review:

]]> 62047653 320 Nooruddean Choudry 0008522235 Kieran 2 2023 3.99
author: Nooruddean Choudry
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/03/09
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: 2023
review:

]]> 62796077 305 Rhys Richards Kieran 3 2023, football-writing 4.19
author: Rhys Richards
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/14
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

]]> 37699843
Frustrated by the game's distorted image back home, John McManus set out to show the Turkish football that he knew - the rich, funny, obsessive, fan culture that he had encountered on the terraces. But he hadn't accounted for the politics. His voyage began at the start of one of the darkest periods in Turkey's modern history, marred by bombings, armed conflict and an attempted coup d'état . Football, he would soon discover, could not help but get dragged in.

Travelling from the elite training facilities of Istanbul to dusty pitches on the Syrian border, taking in visits to far-flung clubs, encounters with characterful players and experiences at riotous matches along the way, Welcome to Hell? offers a unique perspective on an alluring yet troubled football culture, at once both familiar and miles apart from the game in Britain.]]> 400 John McManus 1474604773 Kieran 4 2023, football-writing 4.35
author: John McManus
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/14
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

]]> 59771675 164 Jonathan Wilson 1915237041 Kieran 3 2023, football-writing 3.49
author: Jonathan Wilson
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.49
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/14
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

]]> 54824601
Shortlisted for Scottish Fiction Book of the Year]]> 320 David F. Ross 1913193519 Kieran 3 2023, football-writing 4.10 2020
author: David F. Ross
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/20
date added: 2023/10/20
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

]]> 285131
From Brazil to Bosnia, and Italy to Iran, this is an eye-opening chronicle of how a beautiful sport and its fanatical followers can highlight the fault lines of a society, whether it's terrorism, poverty, anti-Semitism, or radical Islam -- issues that now have an impact on all of us. Filled with blazing intelligence, colourful characters, wry humour, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity, How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.]]> 272 Franklin Foer 0099492261 Kieran 2 football-writing, 2023 3.64 2004
author: Franklin Foer
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2004
rating: 2
read at: 2023/10/10
date added: 2023/10/20
shelves: football-writing, 2023
review:

]]> 880694 'The Hotel du Lac was a dignified building, a house of repute, a traditional establishment, used to welcoming the prudent, the well-to-do, the retired, the self-effacing, the respected patrons of an earlier era'

Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist and holder of modest dreams. Edith has been exiled from home after embarrassing herself and her friends. She has refused to sacrifice her ideals and remains stubbornly single. But among the pampered women and minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville, and her chance to escape from a life of humilitiating spinsterhood is renewed...]]> 184 Anita Brookner 0140147470 Kieran 4 2023 3.55 1984
author: Anita Brookner
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/08
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves: 2023
review:

]]> 124949115
'We want to show to the world that we are alive. That we are strong. Not just us - the whole of Ukraine. We are continuing to play. We are continuing to win.' Darijo Srna

Shakhtar Donetsk have not played in their home stadium since 2014. Their matchdays now typically have no crowds, air raid sirens interrupt games and thoughts of and fears for family, friends and hometowns frontline troops loom large in the players' minds ahead of every game. These are extraordinary times - but Shakhtar is an extraordinary club.

Displaced when fighting first began in the Donbas region, and then again when Russia mounted a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this book honours a club - players, coaching staff, management - who choose to play on. In a time of chaos and conflict, they have become emblems of hope and unity. They are winning on the pitch, and winning hearts and minds across the world.

Following the club's meteoric rise from domestic team to domineering European contenders, Andy Brassell expertly weaves a story of Shakhtar through the ages - their origin story after Ukrainian independence, their evolution and their reinvention. The war forced an exodus of star players and staff and the club has had to find itself once again. With direct testimony and exclusive interviews from those at Shakhtar, this book delivers unparalleled insight to the club's journey - one that is all too often hidden from view. The result is an ode to Shakhtar Donetsk, shining a light on the beauty and force of their football and their fight to play on.]]> 304 Andy Brassell 1472148061 Kieran 2 2023, football-writing 4.10
author: Andy Brassell
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/10/01
date added: 2023/10/08
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

]]> 21523396 300 Danny Rhodes 190980780X Kieran 2 2023 4.11 2014
author: Danny Rhodes
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2023/09/13
date added: 2023/09/13
shelves: 2023
review:

]]> 1023159 262 John King 0099731916 Kieran 2 2023, football-writing 3.41 1997
author: John King
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.41
book published: 1997
rating: 2
read at: 2023/09/11
date added: 2023/09/12
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

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This is the story of modern football’s great data revolution and the group of curious, entrepreneurial personalities who zealously believed in its potential to transform the game. Central to this cast is Chris Anderson, an academic with no experience in football, who saw data as an opportunity to fundamentally change a sport that did not think it could be changed. His aim: to infiltrate the strange, insular world of professional football by establishing a club whose entire DNA could be built around data.

Expected Goals charts his remarkable journey into the heart of the modern game and reveals how clubs across the world, from Liverpool to Leipzig and Brentford to Bayern Munich, began to see how data could help them unearth new players, define radical tactics and plot their path to glory.]]> 304 Rory Smith 0008484031 Kieran 3 2023, football-writing 3.62
author: Rory Smith
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/03
date added: 2023/08/03
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

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Barcelona was Guardiola’s past and his present. Born and raised in Catalonia, he had grown up at the club, eventually witnessing the footballing philosophy of his idol Johan Cruyff first-hand. With the Dutchman as manager and Guardiola his midfield conductor, Barcelona lifted their first European Cup crown in 1992. Nearly 20 years later and it was Guardiola implementing Cruyff’s teachings in his own gifted and independent way; a methodology which had already led the club to more dizzying success.

Mourinho � a man with his own history at Barcelona � had arrived at Real after the triumph of his treble-winning season at Internazionale, where he became the first man to truly upset Pep’s dream team. Mourinho was attempting to stamp his authority on his new dressing room in Madrid, overhauling the natural hierarchy inside it by establishing himself as its absolute leader. He was doing his utmost to take Los Blancos back to their former glories.

Both coaches had their own warriors on the pitch. Gerard Piqué and Sergio Busquets were seen as the proud Catalan nationalists, while Sergio Ramos was viewed as loyal to the Spanish crown. Pepe was the cold, ruthless assassin faced with the unstoppable Lionel Messi and his dancing feet. Each one of them would put their bodies on the line for their side during this quick-fire burst of matches, during which tension would be raised to levels never seen before on a football pitch in the modern era.]]> 170 Paolo Condò Kieran 2 2023, football-writing 3.96
author: Paolo Condò
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.96
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/07/16
date added: 2023/08/03
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

]]> 62997709 The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism uncovers the role that footballers and fans have played in the fight against fascism and the far right. Follow the path of football activism from the turbulent 1920s to the culture wars of the 21st century.

What role did footballers play in World War Two? How did a Portuguese Cup Final help bring down Western Europe's longest-running dictatorship? What impact did the football community have in bringing the atrocities of Latin America's cruelest dictators to global attention?

Football historian and author Chris Lee shines a spotlight on the roles of players, fans, coaches and officials in the fight against the dictatorships of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Salazar and authoritarian states in Latin America, bringing us an intriguing cast of rebels, partisans, spies and activists. Featuring interviews with leading authors and academics, fans and progressive football clubs, The Defiant shows that football and politics cannot be separated and asks what the future holds.]]> 256 Chris Lee 1801501858 Kieran 3 2023, football-writing 3.98
author: Chris Lee
name: Kieran
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/15
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

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This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold.

Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.

Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is the definitive and wildly entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world.]]> 352 Joshua Robinson 1473699584 Kieran 2 2023, football-writing 4.21 2018
author: Joshua Robinson
name: Kieran
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2023/07/01
date added: 2023/07/01
shelves: 2023, football-writing
review:

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