No comments about My Autobiography.

1 comments about Those Feet: A Sensual History of English Football.

1. Plumbing the depths of the English psyche, Winner believes that football beginnings began in the late 19th century Victorian morality play when school headmasters sought release for the young lads' raging testosterone (" the pampered passion") through strenuous and competitive athletics. He ties it all to English sensibilities as seen through old legendary players, the few international victories and the many crushing defeats especially at the feet of the Italians, all of which means little to the American addicted to the Barclays Premier League. Forget the Queen, the Windsors, Big Ben, Shakespeare, this is the true heart of England according to Tom Winner.

No comments about Robbie Keane: The Biography.

No comments about Willie Maley.

No comments about Jock Stein.

5 comments about Den of Lions.

1. I am a Westerner who has lived in Lebanon for many years and yet I gleaned new knowledge of the Middle East from reading "Den of Lions". Terry Anderson is a wonderful writer, and the addition of his fiancee's thoughts and feelings adds depth of insight into the agony of hostage-taking. There are interesting looks into the interaction between hostages and into the daily frustrations of the waste, and yet somehow the not-waste, of almost seven years away from freedom of choice. This is a book that has stayed on my mind.



2. Terry Anderson's Den of Lions is a den of insights into the radical bi-polar terrorist mentality in which he was trapped for over seven years. His descriptions of the bombings, shootings and random daily violence that permeated around the non-citizens and the citizens of Lebanon, make this a classic Middle East hostage survivor's story. Anderson's poems of his cruel incarceration are filled with searing depth that transport you to the various scummy basement cells which he shared with other Westerners. Den of Lions and Hostage by David Jacobson go hand in hand and are important contributions in the collection of Middle East books that help those of us citizens who were not there or too young to remember, the horror that Beirut was during the eighties and early ninties. Very highly recommended!



3. Den of Lions: Memoirs of Seven Years by Terry Anderson is one of my favorite books. The book grabbed my attention and kept it. I read the book in one day. Learning of Terry Anderson's ordeal through his eyes and in his words was amazing. Having been only 4 when he was taken hostage, I did not really know much about him until he was released from Lebanon in 1991, when I was 10. I grew up watching the news with my parents and I can remember seeing his return on television.
   When I decided to study journalism in college, I chose the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. When I heard that Terry Anderson was going to be joining the faculty at Scripps, I was truly excited. I read his memoirs and then had the opportunity to hear him speak about his ordeal. Having him as a professor at Scripps was a wonderful experience for all journalism students. I have the great privilege of saying that I met one of my role models and I am grateful for that.
   Den of Lions: Memoirs of Seven Years is one of the best books I have ever read. It is touching and wonderfully written. It tells Terry Anderson's story in a way that only he could.



4. I do not want this to sound insensitive, but the one thing I kept thinking as I was reading this book is why was he there? The U.S. government was telling U.S. citizens to leave, the Lebanese government did not care, his employer wanted him to leave, and there were increasing hostage incidents. The book his the story of his capture and the seven years he spent as a captive of this militant group. He does a good job in describing the locations he was in, the people that were his captors, and the other persons that he was with. I thought the most interesting parts of the book detailed his conversations with some of his captors and their views on the situation.

   The book is a very interesting view of what happened to the author. The details are rich and he does a good job of painting the scenes for us. He also did a good job of explaining the depression of being a captive and what it is like to loss seven years of your life, although I do not think any author could truly express the emotional pain that he must have gone through. If you are interested in this part of the world or this story, this is a great book. It is also interesting given the current climate in the Middle East to read about what was happening 20 years ago.




5. Mr. Anderson's book is a lesson on how to maintain sainity in the most horrible situations you could every be in; kidnapped and the lose of personal freedom.

   This book is not a pleasant read. It is very important though in that it allows the reader, who is probably very comfortable while reading, to feel the sense of dispair that Mr. Anderson went through.

   The political reasons as well as the climate in the Middle East in the 1980's is very interesting and this account allows us to see it from a totally different perspective.

   Plus it has a happy ending, I highly recommend it.

1 comments about Top Boys: True Stories of Football's Hardest Men.

1. The thing that bothers me about this book is that Cass Pennant, as the author, doesn't really write anything. You've got a two page intro, a bunch of interviews with leaders of 15 to 20 soccer/football firms, and a weak, weak conclusion. The questions that he asks each leader change very little, so it becomes a little repetitious (5 top firms now, top firms of all time, weapons used, activity today, etc). I did like hearing from leaders of some of the smaller clubs in England. Any club, no matter how small, could pull a formidable firm in the 70s and 80s.
   
   If you want a bunch of accounts of "We ran them, they ran us, we took their end, etc", then this book is for you. If you want an actual written, thought-out narrative --i.e. Among the Thugs, Bovver, Scally -- then this isn't what you're looking for. I guess I should have known, as the title says, "True STORIES of Football's Hardest Men." Oh well, my fault.

No comments about Dennis Wise: The Autobiography.

1 comments about Arsene Wenger: The Biography.

1. A look behind the man who transformed Arsenal! I especially liked the way the author was able to skillfully weave Wenger's personality into the biography - to a fan, it gave me a dimension that I never knew from watching the games or reading the newspaper articles.
   
   The biography gave me a good insight to Wenger's approach to the game and his quest for football perfection - each 'chapter' encapsulates the essence of what makes Arsenal such a joy to watch.
   
   Read this if you want a broad overview of the Arsene Years!

1 comments about Cloughie: Walking on Water, My Life.

1. This book dates from 2002, and the last chapter is largely devoted to the state of English football at that date. The sports-obsessed have much longer memories than that, and anyone wanting to know how the (nearly) current scene was viewed by the greatest genius, I'm in no doubt at all, who ever managed an English club can read all about it here. Clough was often wrong, and even he knew that, but much oftener right. Where his crystal ball deceived him in 2002 was in the belief that Alec Ferguson was over the hill. Ferguson has just won the league title again with Manchester United in 2007. It is a terrific achievement and a terrific career, and it's not over yet. To say the least of it, not everyone could have done what Ferguson has, even with Manchester United. What I don't believe Ferguson or any man could have equalled was what Clough achieved with two obscure and unfashionable clubs.
   
   I remember nothing about Clough's career as a player, because that was with minor sides and it was before the blanket TV coverage that we have today. Cloughie himself gives us no opportunity to forget what a great goal-scorer he was before a knee injury brought his playing days to an abrupt end. He went into management because he had bills to pay and a family to support, and he discovered that he had another talent too - he could teach. To put it mildly, he could communicate. To put it even more mildly, he didn't miss and hit the wall with his more acerbic opinions. That was what I used to love about him but, understandably, it didn't endear him to many. He was the glaringly obvious choice for manager of the England team, but governing bodies in sport tend to be side-issue specialists and of course greatly persuaded of their own importance, and they sensed (it would have been impossible not to) that Clough's estimate of that was well short of theirs.
   
   In case you didn't know that Clough was a conceited bigmouth he tells us that himself. He had any amount to be conceited about, and he knows that too. He plays the standard game of disparaging what he calls his `brains', and he was certainly not intellectually inclined. What he had was clear insight - what was blindingly obvious to him would never have been clear to many others in nine lifetimes, and any modern manager or coach wanting or needing to know some home truths could never complain about lack of clarity in Clough's account. Even he wasn't born knowing it. In his playing days it was all about scoring goals, but he was ahead of the others in appreciating that even if the forwards play like world-beaters a defence that plays like panel-beaters and lets in a goal for every goal scored will undo whatever the forwards achieve.
   
   He is as ruthless in describing his own downfall as he ever was in showing up anyone else's shortcomings. It was drink that nearly killed him, and he leads off with that story. If there is a touch of reticence, even from Clough, it shows in the way he can hardly bear to describe how his befuddled judgment led to his disastrous last season at Nottingham Forest. I found the book very readable indeed. He repeats himself a bit, he meanders a bit, but so what? It wasn't the booze that killed him, it was cancer. Like George Best he had to have a liver transplant. Unlike George Best he was not intent on destroying himself and he stopped the drinking before it put an end to him. He was, quite simply, a genius, and our loss was not down to his own frailty but to the nincompoops in charge of selecting an England manager. He tells us that as well, as of course you would expect, and he tells it in his own inimitable way. What improvement, if any, there has been in that department I'm not at all sure. However even from beyond the grave he can still teach, and some lessons worth learning could hardly be clearer than the way they are put across here.