Mary Hanniganlooks at two fascinating accounts of Ireland's cricketing exploits this year, and wraps up some other offerings, from motor sport to horse racing to snooker.
We'll be honest, if you told us 12 months ago that, in the course of the year to come, we'd be engrossed in not one but two books about the exploits of the Irish cricket team we'd have worried about you. But such is the unpredictable beauty of the sporting world, just when it threatens to be predictably humdrum along comes a marvellously unexpected tale, as produced in the Caribbean back in March. A "stranger than fiction" tale the cricket World Cup proved to be too, the death of coach Bob Woolmer after Ireland's St Patrick's Day victory over Pakistan overshadowing the tournament.
Naturally, that extraordinary episode features heavily in both Ed Leahy's Green Wickets(Liberties Press, priced €25) and Raiders of the Caribbean(O'Brien Press, priced €14.95) by Trent Johnston and Gerard Siggins, which was shortlisted for the William Hill Irish Sportsbook of the Year Award.
Leahy's book is beautifully illustrated with exclusive photographs taken by team member Paul Mooney, while Johnston, as Irish captain, gives the ultimate insider's account of the experience. Both books are hugely enjoyable reminders of what was a remarkable few weeks in Irish sport.
John Kenny was on RTÉ duty in the Caribbean this year, which can't have been easy, but he still found time to put the finishing touches to The Dirty Dozen - Ireland's Motor Sport Legends(O'Brien Press, priced €14.95), which profiles the biggest Irish names in the history of rallying, motorbikes and circuit-racing, from Billy Coleman and Rosemary Smith to Eddie Irvine and the Dunlop brothers.
From the same sporting category comes An Independent Man(Orion, priced €28.90) Eddie Jordan's autobiography, written with the assistance of Maurice Hamilton.
While there's rarely been a dull moment in Jordan's career, it seems positively uneventful when compared with the life and times of Alex Higgins, whose autobiography From the Eye of the Hurricane: My Story(Headline, priced €8.99) is a blend of triumph, tragedy and hilarity - in other words, an accurate synopsis of his life story to date.
Michael Clower, one of Ireland's leading horse racing correspondents over the past 25 years, who has already written books on Mick Kinane, Charlie Swan and Istabraq, sticks with his beloved theme in Kings of the Turf(Aurum, priced €24.99), in which he profiles 12 of Ireland's most successful trainers.
Each profile is accompanied by a list of the trainer's Biggest Races Won - need it be said, Aidan O'Brien's major successes take up five pages.
If you've vowed that 2008 will be the year that you will finally get fit, having vowed for the last decade to make your Dublin City marathon debut, then Lindie Naughton's Let's Run - A Handbook for Irish Runners(Ashfield Press, priced €11.99) might help you on your way.
The book offers advice for runners of every level, from medal-winning hopefuls to those who last owned a pair of trainers in the mid 1980s. There are even some tips on how to tie your trainer laces properly which, for some of us, is as much exercise as we'll get in the next 12 months.
Outside Ireland, Lewis Hamilton: The Story So Far(Icon, priced €13.99) is among the bestsellers, a book that is likely to be the first of several autobiographies (possibly an annual affair), while BBC sports personality of the year Joe Calzaghe is also high in the list with No Ordinary Joe(Arrow Books, priced €27.55).
The autobiography of former England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher is a warts and all affair - which Andrew Flintoff won't be requesting from Santa - but the award for book title of the year goes to Michael Simkins for Fatty Batter: How Cricket Saved My Life(Then Ruined It) (Ebury Press, priced €16.70). It's not quite Green Wicketsor Raiders of the Caribbean, rather an account by an obsessive, overweight cricket devotee who could only dream of reaching the heights of Trent Johnston and Co earlier this year.
