General non-fiction
Leigh Centurions Yearbook 2017
The Road to Super League
By Mike Latham and Daniel Spencer
The 2016 Kingstone Press Championship was a season unlike any other. Thrills and spills all the way were crowned with a first promotion to Super League in British rugby league’s much heralded New Era.
And the club that made that leap was Leigh Centurions, packed full of great players, backed by charismatic owner Derek Beaumont and roared on by a vocal crowd whether on the road or at a bouncing Leigh Sports Village.
In The Road to Super League, Mike Latham and Daniel Spencer take a look back at an action-packed year, with all the memories and statistics any fan could hope for. It’s a perfect feast to celebrate the Centurions’ return to the top flight in 2017 and a yearbook that no Leigh supporter will want to miss.
Both Sides of the Fence – A Life in Rugby League & Union
By Bev Risman
With a foreword by Lord Melvyn Bragg
Paperback, 216pp.
At the start of a glorious and varied career, Bev Risman faced two major dilemmas. Should he represent his ancestral homeland Wales or England, his country of birth? Ought he to play rugby league or rugby union? Son of league icon Gus, Risman made his name in the fifteen-a-side code, playing for England and touring with the 1959 British Lions.
Later, after initially moving to rugby league with Leigh, he enjoyed huge success at Leeds, with whom he played in the famous Watersplash Challenge Cup final at Wembley. He was top goal-kicker in the league for three years and became a dual-code tourist while captaining the 1968 Great Britain side in the World Cup in Australia.
Upon retirement, Risman became rugby league’s first ever development officer in the South of England. He was appointed director of the Student Rugby League, became a founder member of the charity Rugby League Cares and, in 2010, enjoyed a year as President of the RFL and was awarded the OBE for services to the game.
An all-round sportsman, Risman also worked for the Lawn Tennis Association and was technical director of David Storey’s rugby league-based play The Changing Room in London’s West End.
Both Sides of the Fence is his autobiography. A fascinating insight into decades of great change, it lays open the events and personalities that have dominated both codes of rugby.
The Woman With Nine Lives
The eagerly-awaited sequel to The Woman Without A Number
Iby Knill is remarkable. An Auschwitz holocaust survivor from Bratislava, she married a British army officer and set out to make a new life in England, arriving in Cornwall in 1947 to set up home.
After struggling to integrate as an immigrant in post-war Britain, she went on to raise a family and carved careers in civil defence, education, textile design and as a linguist, before gaining an MA, aged 80. The loss of her beloved Bert prompted thoughts of writing, but there was a stumbling block: 60 years of suppressed memories.
Now in her 90s, Iby has since overcome several breakdowns but remains determined to share her experiences with future generations. This eagerly-awaited sequel picks up where her best-seller, The Woman Without a Number, left off. It tells the stories of her brother, father and mother – whose indominability she has inherited – and evokes changing times through a life that has embraced challenge and opportunity.
Poignant, moving and searingly honest, The Woman With Nine Lives is confirmation that the past cannot be avoided but, when the very best of human nature is on display, a brighter future can always lie ahead.
Hock: The Real Me
CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT
The autobiography of Gareth Hock – As told to Neil Barker
With a foreword by Adrian Morley
Gareth Hock is widely seen as the bad boy of rugby league. A player who, in his early years with hometown Wigan, seemed to have the world at his feet was instead derailed by a drugs ban, skirmishes with officials and other headline-grabbing controversies.
Yet now, for the first time, Hock insists that there is more to this private family man than that, while putting his side of a story that has never been short of incident.
Hock: The Real Me is a rugby league book that – like the player himself – packs a real punch!
160 pages, paperback.
The Great Leeds Pub Crawl
By Simon Jenkins
Join the Yorkshire Evening Post’s award-winning beer writer Simon Jenkins on a criss-cross pub crawl through Leeds, calling in at dozens of popular watering holes.
Along with descriptions of the beers, pubs and adventures the author encounters along the way, The Great Leeds Pub Crawl also contains fascinating asides about local history, the story of brewing in the city, and it suggests plenty of alternative routes to keep even the thirstiest pub-crawler satisfied.
Comprehensively revised and updated, with even more magnificent colour photos, this is a book that no visitor to – or resident of – Yorkshire’s biggest city can afford to be without. An ale trail with a difference, it looks at no less than 63 pubs in detail and many more in passing.
This is an entertaining, informative and at times surprising tour of one of Britain’s most vibrant metropolises. Whether you are after a quiet pint, a lively night out, a chat with friendly locals, the odd cocktail or a quality bite to eat, The Great Leeds Pub Crawl is the guide for you.