Wednesday, January 20, 2010

January Title: The Red and the White by Huw Richards


THE RED AND THE WHITE: THE STORY OF ENGLAND v WALES RUGBY by Huw Richards
It is the one match, the Welsh one, which every Englishman wants to be a part of, which just has got to be won. Nothing really compare to the atmosphere of this Welsh Match. It’s a confrontation, it’s history
Dean Richards
A win against France, the Scots or the Irish is always welcome. But there is nothing the Welsh supporter relishes more than a victory over the English – especially if it is at Twickenham
Gareth Edwards
No match in the history of the Six Nations is more feverishly anticipated than England v Wales. Wales has its history of playing the finest rugby of all the home nations, England its enviable strength in depth and forward muscle. With a shared sporting heritage stretching back for more than a century, it is the most closely contested clash of teams in British sport.
From Henry Taylor’s opening score for England in 1881 to Leigh Halfpenny’s try for Wales in their victory at the Millennium Stadium in 2009, The Red and the White brings together the legendary matches, mud baths, punch-ups, star players and many generations of fans to tell the thrilling story of this most epic of rivalries.
Huw Richards has talked to many veterans of these matches, as well as to present players and administrators to tell the whole history of Wales v England at rugby: a contest that is a clash of cultures and histories as well as a titanic sporting occasion.

January Title: Lucky Kunst by Gregor Muir




Lucky Kunst: the rise and fall of Young British Art
by Gregor Muir
'Muir doesn't put a foot wrong... this lucid, lurid, indiscreet memoir of gilded gutters, "more drugs than milk", Sensation, Hirst's shark and Emin's bed, is an unrivalled record of 1990s Cool Britannia, when British art wowed the world' Jackie Wullschlager
Financial Times
In 1988 no-one outside a semi-derelict, little-frequented backwater of East London had heard of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin or the Chapman brothers, let alone envisioned putrefying sharks or fried eggs and a kebab as pioneering works of art. But Gregor Muir, the 'embedded journalist' of the nascent community of Young British Artists, was there to witness their outrageous, hilarious and very badly-behaved rise to fame...