The sporting spirit

The book is divided into five sections but it tackles broadly two themes

The Greatest

The Quest for Sporting Perfection

Matthew Syed

Hachette 

287 pages; Rs 399

The idea of collating their newspaper columns into a book is a common feature among today’s journalists, buffeted as they are by falling readership and the onslaught of technology. While it might make sense to do so, if for no other reason than to have everything one has written in one place, such books cannot allow for the sort of long-form ratiocination that is, well, the raison d’être of writing a book in the first place.

Matthew Syed is a sports journalist who has written for The Times of