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The Slummer: Quarters Till Death by Geoffrey Simpson © 2021, BarkingBox Press, 364 Pages. In my youth, during the 80’s, working a summer job as a hospital orderly, in our moments of respite, we’d sit and flick through a pile of well-read magazines waiting for the next...

Scottie by Norman Harris © 2008 Last Side Publishing 170 pages Along with Garth Gilmour, Norman Harris has a special place in New Zealand sports journalism as a prolific author of running books including, but not limited, to The Legend of Lovelock, Lap of Honour, The...

James McNeish © 1986 Random House 495 pages. Of all New Zealand’s 1500m heroes, none has been more explored than Jack Lovelock, the 1936 Olympic Champion.  Given the backdrop of his greatest athletic achievement in Berlin - 3 years prior to the outbreak of World...

Brian Glanville © 1969 Faber & Faber 318 pages I FIRST READ The Olympian when I was a teen with a love of athletics and fiction. 40 years later, reading the novel again this week was as exciting as the day I first discovered an old pan paperback copy in a second...

This summer I treated myself to a volume of The Best of The Tough of The Track comic strips that once appeared in the British magazine for boys called Victor. For those unfamiliar with Victor it was a weekly comic paper published weekly from the 1960’s through to...

I’m going to give myself a pat on the back. Growing up in Paekākāriki, it was a beach life. A big focus over the summer months was surf lifesaving. It stood to reason. As a beachside community, people swam and surfed there. While I was never actively involved the surf...

One of the reasons for attending the recent World Track and Field Championships in London over August was to get a first hand a feel for how showcase events are run these days so I can more accurately describe the mechanics of the latest innovations in my novels....

I haven’t written a blog for a while due to being busy on the work front (yes, like 88% of aspiring authors, I work a day job that lets me save a bit on the side for producing my running novels) and also because I’ve been writing in my spare time. Asked recently why I...

Every year is different, however I think 2017 is truly going to be one out of the bag. For starters there’s going to be a new guy, who many didn't see coming, calling the shots over at the White House. Elsewhere, in the world of athletics, come February there’s also a...

I wrote this blog on the third day of summer and three days have since passed. On the first day of summer, I tweeted that coincidentally I was also attending the first of three scheduled Christmas Parties for the festive season and promptly lost three followers! Not...