The best of the year concerns, fittingly, the athlete of the century and his part in shaping one of the key decades therein. King of the World (Picador, £14.99 in UK) by David Remnick manages a rare trick in finding a new angle on Muhammad Ali. Remnick writes with a beauty befitting his subject, and his patient telling of the poignant tales of Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston sets the stage for a fuller understanding of the world which was changed by Ali's arrival.
As usual, much of the best sportswriting of the year came from America and Best American Sports Writing 1999 (Houghton Mifflin, $11.99) includes the usual slew of wonderful articles. David Halberstam's piece on Michael Jordan and Steve Friedman's dip into the world of pro bowling are highlights this year.
The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinniss (Little Brown, £17.99 in UK) is an odd type of soccer book. McGinniss was once sued by a triple murderer over a book he wrote about him, but this tale of an over-achieving soccer team should be considerably less controversial. McGinniss perhaps inserts himself a little too insistently into the life of the team and the narrative of the book, but there is no doubt that he gets lucky with the story of a season which includes death, group sex, drug-smuggling and a little football. McGinniss knows the difficulty in writing about somebody honestly, and meeting their expectations into the bargain. The long-awaited arrival of Hugh McIlvanney's ghosted story of Alex Ferguson, Managing My Life (Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99 in UK) arrived this year. Nobody but McIlvanney could have done the job properly. McIlvanney and Ferguson are still friends and the story within is Ferguson's, albeit told with McIlvanney's lovely facility for prose. A glimpse inside the brain and background of one of the great soccer men.
On the GAA front, the photographers at Sportsfile, friends of this paper and this writer, have produced their third annual collection of photos of the gaelic games year. A Season of Sundays (Easons, £14.95) has itself become an integral part of the GAA year. This year's book is the best yet.