Will Slattery

Like most of the listeners, I'm sure, I unfortunately only get the urge to binge read when on holidays and would love the panel had any recommendations of favourites they have read down the years.

The Catcher in the Rye excluded.

All the best, Jack.

I haven't got to that yet, Jack, so maybe I'll put that on the list.

I just sent that email to you guys earlier and said, is there any books you'd like to throw out for guys or girls about to go off on a holiday, sports related?

football is like there's match fixing there's like a crazy president who's like firing people on a whim and he's like really gets to know the players and the manager he's like living in the town he gets to know the townspeople it's a brilliant book one of the great football ones One of the last ones I read on holidays was the Barca book by Simon de Cooper the Dutch journalist it's a brilliant book about the kind of um

I have a few written down on my sheet.

Go on.

Regularly on the show, Alan Shipnock, the fail book is very good.

Fail book is exceptional.

like if you like Phil has a very colourful kind of personal life you know the gambling is probably to the forefront people know about the gambling but it's just a good little kind of chronicling of it and obviously the Saudi Arabian stuff comes into it in the back half but even up to that point like if you even took the Saudi stuff out of it it's a very kind of crazy kind of thrilling read Jeff Perlman X2 I have written on my sheet of paper here Showtime yeah

his book about the 80s Lakers, which was adapted into a good HBO show as well.

And then there's kind of a follow-up one about the Shaq-Kobe Lakers as well, the Three Ring Circus is very good.

So there are a couple I had written down.

George Kimball's a great writer.

the day to day the nitty gritty the minute to minute about professional sport from an Irish sports person point of view so like I'd have them up there with any of the greats Have you read the Sweet Science you know that boxing book AJ Liebling yeah brilliant it's like held up often in America it's like one of the great kind of it's like boxing essays but one of them he goes to a boxing match in Donnybrook bus station that's I don't know why I just wanted to mention that it's because you know I pass it fairly regularly it's one of the

iconic American sports books Don McRae is two very good ones as well I just wanted to mention Dark Trade is one of them another boxing book he kind of is embedded with a few different fighters over the course of 12 months and around the same time he actually brought out a really good rugby book called Winter Colors just as the game went professional in 95 and again he just embedded himself with a couple of different players for different international teams Keith Wood is one of them Lawrence Delaglio is another over the course of maybe a season he kind of checks in with them across a campaign that's very very good as

Do you have a book in you, do you think?

I think you could write a good kind of a George.

You could have a George Plimpton-esque book in you, I think.