The Channel Four Book of Big Races

Sports & Outdoors

Magee, Sean

Individual Sports

Sidgwick Jackson Ltd

Ascot: The History, written with the full cooperation of the Ascot Authority and with access to the Royal Archives, Weatherbys, and the Jockey Club, is the official history of the world's most famous racecourse. For almost three centuries, the very word Ascot has been synonymous with royalty, elegance, high fashion, and style-and with the world's finest racehorses battling for some of the Turf's most prestigious prizes. Established in 1711 by Queen Anne in an open space in Windsor Forest, the course has come to represent the sport of racing itself through the reigns of twelve monarchs. Above all, the history of Ascot resonates with the names of the many outstanding horses that, over the years, have graced its turf and established its reputation. Here are the eighteenth-century legends Eclipse and Gimcrack; the twentieth-century giants Ribot, Nijinsky, Shergar, and Dubai Millennium; Arkle, the supreme steeplechaser; and the best-loved Ascot horse of all, Brown Jack. And with the great horses are linked the great jockeys, including Steve Donoghue, Gordon Richards, Lester Piggott, and Frankie Dettori, whose "Magnificent Seven" winners at Ascot in 1996 remains one of the greatest feats of jockeyship in the racecourse's history. At once enormously readable and authoritative, Ascot: The History is rich in character, detail, and anecdote and is lavishly illustrated throughout. Exciting, illuminating, and entertaining, it is the book for all who love the sport of Kings and Queens.

Ascot: The History

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

A&C Black

Lester Piggott is the greatest Derby jockey of all time. His nine winners in the world's greatest race form one of the most glorious and unassailable records in all of sports. Extensively illustrated and packed with insight and anecdotes, this classic racing book tells the stories, in his own words, of each of those famous victories.Lester Piggott was champion Flat jockey in Great Britain eleven times, and rode over 5,000 winners around the world in a career which lasted from 19481994.

Lester's Derbys

Piggott, Lester

Biographies & Memoirs

Methuen Publishing, Ltd.

The legendary BBC radio program Desert Island Discs celebrated 70 glorious years in 2012. Since the program's deviser Roy Plomley interviewed comedian Vic Oliver in January 1942, nearly 3,000 distinguished people from all walks of life have been stranded on the mythical island, accompanied only by eight records, one book, and a luxury. This beautifully illustrated landmark book tells the absorbing story of Britain's favorite radio program in all its rich and intriguing detail through an exclusive selection of just 100 castaways, the crème de la crème of the great and the good. Over the years each has been interviewed by one of just three further eminent successors to Plomley: Michael Parkinson, Sue Lawley, or today's presenter, Kirsty Young. Discover how Diana Mosley caused outrage by fondly remembering Hitler’s magnetic charm and disputing the scale of the Holocaust, how soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf famously chose seven of her own recordings, Roy Plomley interviewed the wrong Alistair McLean, Terry Pratchett took the Chrysler Building in New York as his luxury, while Julian Clary took a prosthetic arm and Cathy Burke her laminated surfboard of James Caan. Not simply the history of a radio program, this is a record of our lives and society over the last 70 years. It is the one book you will want to take with you (alongside the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare) when cast away on your own desert island.

Desert Island Discs: 70 Years of Castaways

Arts & Photography

Music

BANTAM PRESS

Desert Island Discs celebrated its 70th birthday in 2012. Since the program&#8217;s deviser Roy Plomley interviewed comedian Vic Oliver in January 1942, nearly 3,000 distinguished people from all walks of life have been stranded on the mythical island, accompanied by only eight records, one book, and a luxury. Here the story of one of BBC Radio 4&#8217;s favourite programs is chronicled through a special selection of castaways. Roy Plomley, inventor of the program as well as its presenter for more than 40 years, quizzes the young Cliff Richard about "these rather frenzied movements" the 1960s pop sensation makes on the stage. Robert Maxwell tells Plomley&#8217;s successor Michael Parkinson that "I will have left the world a slightly better place by having lived in it." Diana Mosley assures Sue Lawley that Adolf Hitler was "extraordinarily fascinating" and had mesmeric blue eyes. And Johnny Vegas tugs Kirsty Young&#8217;s heartstrings with his account of a childhood so impoverished that family pets were fair game: "My dad had always claimed that rabbits were livestock, but we&#8217;d never eaten one before." Desert Island Discs is much more than a radio program. It is a unique and enduringly popular take on our lives and times&#8212;and this extensively illustrated book tells in rich detail the colorful and absorbing story of an extraordinary institution.

Arts & Literature

Transworld Publishers

The Race of My Life

TRAFALGAR SQUARE +

This title a is guide to the stars of racing - the racehorses. Racegoers - and television viewers of sport - love to study horses, not only for pleasure but also for profit, as the ability to assess the confirmation and well-being of a horse is crucial when deciding which one to back.

Channel Four Racing Guide to Racehorses

Humor & Entertainment

Puzzles & Games

Boxtree Ltd.

Review\nMany books have been written about famous horses but none like this; a well-informed, enthusiastic, engagingly written and unusually wide-ranging work. It was written to celebrate horses famous for whatever reason and it succeeds wonderfully well―David Ashforth, THE RACING POST\nIn Praise of Famous Horses is an A-Z companion to perhaps the most loved of all domesticated animals. From D.H. Lawrence's horse Aaron, whose hide was posthumously made into a duffel-bag, to Zippy Chippy, fabled American loser, all the horses featured in this book have their very own claim to fame. Some - among them Bucephalas, Red Rum, Champion the Wonder Horse and Rocinante - are permanent residents in the equine pantheon. Others - such as Rossa Prince, who managed to lose a walkover - attract more qualified appreciation.\nLiterature, history and art, battlefield, movie and television, myth, racecourse and religion are all enriched by these magnificent creatures. From A to Z, here is the wonderful world of famous horses.

In Praise of Famous Horses: An A-Z of the Most Celebrated in History and Culture, Myth and Sport

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Pets & Animal Care

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

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