latest reads
“An Instant Classic” Daily Telegraph
Football Book Of The Year at the British Sports Book Awards (2011) "was Anthony Clavane’s magnificent Promised Land. A fans-eye view of Leeds United over the years, Promised Land is an instant classic, standing comparison with Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, although Clavane’s book concerns itself more with the cityscape that surrounds his beloved football club and less with the author’s own neuroses."
Simon Briggs
Daily Telegraph
Promised Land: The Sunday Times ‘football book of the year’
"This superb memoir defies categorisation...Clavane brings together a wealth of detail, allied with historical and sporting judgment, to produce the football book of the year."
Nick Pitt, The Sunday Times
Radio 2 non-fiction book of the year
"My non-fiction favourite is a book by Anthony Clavane...and it's a bit in the school of Nick Hornby I guess. The prose is beautiful. My wife, who's not a football fan, liked it. (She was) captivated by the prose, by the sentences, by the emotion. It could have been about anything. And that's the great thing about this book. A very very good book." Ian McMillan on Simon Mayo's Radio 2 show.
"Reading Promised Land is like eavesdropping on a conversation between Alan Bennett, Howard Jacobson, and David Peace"
Scratching Shed post
"It really is brilliant how Clavane has tied the three strands of the book together." Read the review
Leeds Guide Review
http://www.leedsguide.co.uk/review/book-review/promised-land/17669
Daily Telegraph sports books of the year (2010)
"For the year’s most successful marriage of social history and sporting drama, turn to Promised Land. Anthony Clavane’s enchanting evocation of his four decades as a Leeds United supporter. Clavane writes translucent, simple prose, full of vivid details. Leeds United becomes a prism for the city: the “New Jerusalem” that could never quite escape the stain of its industrial past. Both insightful and humane, this is sportswriting at its very best."
James Lawton, The Independent
"Brilliantly sculpted. Absorbing and superbly wide-ranging. Most impressive is that, when you put down the book, you feel you know not just the story of a football team but the city it represents."
Henry Winter, Daily Telegraph
"A well-written, emotional and thoughtful chronicle."Praise for Promised Land
"Clavane, erudite, educated, an adopted southerner, hardly ascribes to the Elland Road stereotype, yet there is an emotional intravenous drip connecting him to Yorkshire’s West Riding. A wordsmith’s ability, coupled with a history teacher’s instinct, and framed by a deep passion for all things from the city of Leeds, has resulted in an extraordinary book."
Janine Self, SJA website
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"Even if you're not a Leeds fan, read Promised Land by Anthony Clavane - wonderfully written."
Patrick Barclay, The Times
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"One of the best football books I've read for a long time."
Brian Glanville
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"A compelling read."
Henry Winter, Daily Telegraph
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"A riveting, and ultimately very moving book."
Caryl Phillips
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"Fascinating beyond mere football."
Ben East, Metro
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"Superbly written and a great read."
Robert Endeacott, Leeds Leeds Leeds magazine
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