John Doyle | The World is a Ball

Very nice piece on The World Is A Ball by a first-rate young writer in St. John’s Newfoundland… Continue reading

The World Is a Ball is # 2 on the Macleans Bestseller list, just out today (week of June 7th, 2010). Thanks to all bought, read & told their friends about it. Continue reading

Good, thoughtful & wise review of The World Is A Ball in The Irish Times.

Plus some sweet online notices by Philip Rappaport and Shaina Luck. Continue reading

The U.K. and Ireland edition of The World Is A Ball is now available. Continue reading

Got a really, really nice review in The Record. That’s the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, a fine paper for which I once wrote, in days of yore. And is proud of it.

Plus there’s a very nice short review in the Vancouver Sun: “He’s masterly on the topic of his favourite sport.” Continue reading

The CBC Book Club is featuring The World is a Ball all through June. Continue reading

The World is a Ball is now on the following Bestseller Lists: The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Macleans, The Vancouver Sun, The Canadian Booksellers Association (TBM BookManager).

And there’s a kinda nice review in The Toronto Sun this weekend, and the Montreal Gazette likes it a lot. Continue reading

One week after publication date, The World is a Ball is Amazon Canada’s #1 Bestseller in Sports book category…. (well, for a few hours, anyway) Continue reading

Check out the Croatia edition of The World Is a Ball. Dead-cool cover image. Continue reading

The Gazette says “it’s a perfect Canadian’s primer for the imminent World Cup.” The Globe and Mail calls it “a fine book about the beautiful game.” Chapters Indigo says it’s a “great read to prep for this summer’s World Cup.”

Plus there’s an interview article from Maclean’s, and some quibbles from the Telegraph-Journal which opens with “John Doyle had no plans to try his hand at being a sportswriter. And with The World is a Ball he hasn’t become one.” Continue reading

From the web site of Bolen Books in Victoria, B.C.

The World Is A Ball by John Doyle (release date May 2010)

Somewhere in the stack of books that the folks at Bolen Books handed me was a book on soccer; a preamble to the World Cup, by John Doyle, the TV and entertainment critic for the Globe and Mail. My earliest sporting memories are of soccer and, as a lifelong player of the game who named his boat after the 2006 Cup-winning Italian team, I was doubtful that a professional couch potato could capture the excitement and gravitas of the coming tournament in South Africa. I was wrong. So happily wrong. Continue reading

This Blog thingy exists because there’s a book coming in May 2010 – The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness, and Meaning of Soccer, by John Doyle.

Hereabouts you’ll find Information and News about the book, links to recent Globe and Mail Television columns, and to other soccer-related Blogs and Web Sites. Possibly, too, outrageous or insightful remarks about soccer and the build-up to this year’s World Cup in South Africa. Tears and laughter, just like the book.

The books opens with a quotation – “In my childhood in a small western town, the local soccer club had the status of an illegal organization.” John Waters, Irish writer, 2002.

It also includes, early on, a description of a game that took place in 2002. At the World Cup in Korea/Japan, Ireland played Germany in a first-round game. The description includes this: Continue reading

U.S. rights to The World is a Ball: The Joy, Madness and Meaning of Soccer to John Atwood at Rodale, for release fall 2010, by The Bukowski Agency.

UK, Commonwealth, Rep. Of Ireland rights to Eoin McHugh of Transworld Ireland by Bill Hamilton of A.M. Heath for The Bukowski Agency, for publication in May 2010.

Croatian rights to Znanje D.D. for release in May 2010, by Agnieszka Zieliƒska of Graal for The Bukowski Agency.

The U.K/Commonwealth/Rep. Of Ireland edition has a revised Introduction by the author.

The Croatia edition has a Preface to the Croatia Edition by the author. Continue reading