Red or Dead

"You don’t have to be a fan of the world’s most popular sport to enjoy David Peace’s “fictional biography” of soccer coach — uh, “football manager” — Bill Shankly, whose tenure at Liverpool Football Club was one of the most successful in British history. Peace’s novel has echoes of James Joyce, but it really resists any comparisons — sprawling, ambitious and heartbreaking, it’s one of the best sports novels in recent years."

"The novel is barking mad, but quite brilliant, and is a monument to a kind of magnificent decency once at the core of British life."