'Football in the 1880s was an unruly, rough, and often dangerous game. To curb the state the sport was in, William McCrum proposed a new and drastic sanction. He called it a penalty kick.' In 1891, a contentious new measure against an excess of foul play, Rule 13, was proposed to the FA by an amateur goalkeeper from County Armagh. 'The Irishman's Motion' modernised the world's most popular game. Today – in the shootout – Rule 13 continues to influence the sport through its astonishing psyc...

Introduced by Annie Proulx, l ose yourself in an epic naval journey in this Booker Prize-winning novel: the first in the acclaimed Sea Trilogy by the author of Lord of the Flies.I grow a little crazy, I think, like all men at sea who live too close to each other and too close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon . . .Edmund Talbot is sailing t...

Everybody loves a list but this is a list of major ambition: namely, to select the best 100 novels in the English language, published from the late 17th century to the present day. This list has been built up week by week in The Observer since September 2013, and selected by writer and Observer editor Robert McCrum. With a short critique on each book, this is a real delight for literary lovers.

‘Enchanting’ - Simon Russell Beale‘Remarkable’ - James Shapiro‘Wonderful . . . compulsively readable’ - Nicholas HytnerWhy do the collected works of an Elizabethan writer continue to speak to us as if they were written yesterday?When Robert McCrum began his recovery from a life-changing stroke, described in My Year Off, he discovered that the only words that made sense to him were snatches of...

As read on BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week**'Moving, intellectual and unsentimental. I think it will become a classic' Melvyn Bragg'Thoughtful, subtle, elegantly clever and oddly joyous, Every Third Thought is beautiful'** Kate MosseIn 1995, at the age of forty-two, Robert McCrum suffered a dramatic and near-fatal stroke. Since that life-changing event, McCrum has lived in the shadow of death, unavoidably aware of his own mort...

With an introduction by Henry Marsh, author of Do No HarmMy brain, which had just let me down so badly, was perhaps never so active. The paramedics' question was a fundamental one. Who are you? Yes indeed. Who am I?Robert McCrum was forty-two when he suffered a massive stroke which left one side of his body totally paralysed, his speech drastically impaired, and his sense of himself radically altered. What followed was a prolonged period o...

Introduction Copyright 2015 Henry Marsh, Afterword Copyright 2015 Robert McCrumRobert McCrum was forty-two when he suffered a massive stroke which left one side of his body paralysed, his speech drastically impaired and his sense of himself radically altered. My Year Off traces McCrum’s gruelling recovery as he regains sensation and begins to come to terms, with the help of his family, with what can and cannot be recovered after a grave injury. It is a moving remonstrance against h...

After a near fatal stroke in 1995, Robert McCrum has gained an intimate understanding of his own mortality. Twenty-two years on, his friends have joined him in experiencing Prospero’s ‘every third thought’ of death as a dominating theme of life. McCrum asks: can we make peace with what Freud calls ‘the necessity of dying’? Searching for answers leads him to brain surgeons, psychologists, cancer patients and writers for advice and wisdom. For anyone preoccupied by living in the lengthening ...

'Enchanting' Simon Russell Beale --- 'Remarkable' James Shapiro'Wonderful . . . compulsively readable' Nicholas HytnerWhy do the collected works of an Elizabethan writer continue to speak to us as if they were written yesterday?When Robert McCrum began his recovery from a life-changing stroke, described in My Year Off, he discovered that the only words that made sense to him were snatches of Shakespeare. Unable to t...

A rich, unmined piece of Canadian history, an intense psychological drama, a mystery to be solved . . . and a hardwon escape from a family curse.Like his friends Banting and Best, Dr. John FitzGerald was a Canadian hero. He founded Connaught Labs, saved untold lives with his vaccines and transformed the idea of public health in Canada and the world. What so darkened his reputation that his memory has been all but erased?A sensitive, withdrawn boy is born in...

'A fine book' The Sunday Times'Powerful' Guardian'Wonderful' The Telegraph**'Moving, funny, warm'**Mail on Sunday'Brave, compassionate, tender and honest' Metro**'This book began as an attempt to hold on to my witty, storytelling mother with the one thing I had to hand. Words. Then, as the enormity of the social cr...

We all do it - how to be a better liar, spot a charlatan and tell the difference between truth and fictionIn Born Liars, Ian Leslie takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of ideas that brings the latest news about deception back from the frontiers of psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, and explores the role played by lies - both black and white - in our childhoods, our careers, and our health, as well as in advertising, politics, sport and war. Dra...