For the primary time in its historical past, books by feminine authors dominate the William Hill Sports activities E book of the 12 months Award shortlist. Following an impartial judging course of by a panel of consultants in sports activities and journalism, 4 of the six are titles written by ladies, the best share of feminine finalists because the competitors began in 1989.
The Award, which is the world’s most useful and longest-running sports activities writing prize, features a £30,000 money prize for the winner, and can be contested by six authors:
Althea: The Lifetime of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson by Sally H. Jacobs
Concussed: Sport’s Uncomfortable Reality by Sam Peters
Good for a Lady: My Life Operating in a Man’s World by Lauren Fleshman
Kick The Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
Unbreakable by Ronnie O’Sullivan
Unfair Play: The Battle for Girls’s Sport by Sharron Davies with Craig Lord
Independently judged by a panel of consultants, led for the fifth 12 months by award-winning sports activities journalist, Alyson Rudd, the various six-book shortlist was chosen from greater than 150 entries, and has titles that cowl snooker, rugby, tennis, and athletics, together with one fictional novel set on the planet of horse-racing.
New York Instances bestseller, Good for a Lady: My Life Operating in a Man’s World by Lauren Fleshman; biography Althea: The Lifetime of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson by Sally H. Jacobs; former Olympic swimmer, Sharron Davies and her ebook, Unfair Play: The Battle for Girls’s Sport; and novel Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan, are shortlisted and in with an opportunity of changing into the Award’s third feminine winner.
Snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan can be shortlisted for his sincere and hypnotic autobiography, Unbreakable. Journalist Sam Peters, who fearlessly brings to mild the devastating results that head accidents have on sportspeople, significantly rugby gamers, in his balanced and eloquently written ebook, Concussed, completes the listing.
Chair of the judges’ panel for the William Hill Sports activities E book of the 12 months Award, Alyson Rudd, mentioned: “That is arguably probably the most thrilling shortlist within the historical past of the award. It has one thing for everybody, and the standard is exceptionally excessive. There’s a method above common autobiography within the type of the web page turner that’s Ronnie O’Sullivan’s ebook and a compelling biography of Althea Gibson, the tennis pioneer too few sports activities followers find out about. Sam Peters, in the meantime, bravely and eloquently particulars how concussion has blighted rugby.
“In the end ladies are being commissioned to write down about sport and that is mirrored in the truth that 4 of the shortlisted authors are feminine and two of them, Sharron Davies and Lauren Fleshman, have produced books that reduce, courageously, to the center of the challenges dealing with ladies’s sport. And, lastly, Kathryn Scanlan has summoned a style busting ebook that captures the uncooked vitality of sporting ardour.”
Now in its thirty fifth 12 months, the William Hill Sports activities E book of the 12 months Award is devoted to rewarding excellence in sports activities writing and gives authors and publishers a platform to showcase and promote their books. The primary William Hill Sports activities E book of the 12 months Award passed off in 1989, incomes it the title of the longest-established competitors within the business.
The winner of the William Hill Sports activities E book of the 12 months 2023 Award can be declared on thirtieth November 2023 at an official award ceremony at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, London. The Award has a £30,000 money prize for the winner and the shortlisted authors will every obtain £3,000 and a leather-bound copy of their ebook.
For extra details about the William Hill Sports activities E book of the 12 months Award, please go to: https://information.williamhill.com/sport/sports-book-of-the-year/
