League and literature

In a recent edition of the online review The Browser, the novelist Richard Beard talks about the literature of rugby and selects his five key books.

His selection can be found here.

The interesting thing about this (apart from the fact he's chosen one of my books) is that although he's clearly a rugger man, he's chosen David Storey's novel This Sporting Life, which uses league as a backdrop for a doomed love story between an older woman and a younger tearaway league player.

In fact, as he admits in his book Muddied Oafs, the only two decent novelists who have ever written about 'rugby' are Storey and Thomas Keneally, both from hardcore league backgrounds.

Perhaps the devil really does have all the best books?