Time Added On
Book Tracking
Sign up to add this book to your recommneded, reading, or planned reading list.
Book Covers
Multiple editions, click to view covers:
Book Details
Written by George Hook.
Buy this on Amazon
($4.58)
Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
In his autobiography George Hook will tell his amazing life story for the first time, from his childhood in Cork right through to his emergence as one of the sharpest and most outspoken media commentators of today. Hook tells with painful frankness of his life and his failure as a son, as a father, as a husband and as a businessman. He also tells about his career in catering and the constant struggle to keep the banks, his creditors and a nervous breakdown at bay. He found solace in rugby. Here for the first time is his account of how he gave Eddie O'Sullivan his first big break, how they made a success of Connacht, and how the relationship changed. It covers his controversial days coaching London Irish and how he prepared the USA for the first rugby World Cup. He writes with a sometimes unsettling honesty about the impact it all had on his life and the lives of those he was closest to, and how he both saved his marriage and found happiness and redemption in the career for which he was made.User Reviews (1) Login or create an account to write a review.
Fence thinks this book is Excellent.
Around amonth ago I read an entry on Omaniblog about this book, up until then I hadn’t even known that George Hook had a book out. But that post caught my attention. George Hook is probably best known in Ireland for his rugby punditry. Together with Brent Pope and Tom McGurk, he analyses rugby for RTE in an entertaining, honest, blunt manner. He also has a radio show, but I’m not big on the radio so haven’t heard him enough to comment on that. In many ways I suppose he is the Eamonn Dunphy of the rugby world.
But I know him primarily from his rugby comments, and his constant promises that Munster will lose, and that the likes of Stringer shouldn’t be playing. I disagree with him, but am well aware that he is very knowledgable about the game. And in an entertaining way.
But when I started reading this book I was very surprised at it. From Omani’s blog I’d heard that it wouldn’t be all easy reading, and he’d only gotten to page 4. But I wasn’t aware of the depression, the debt, the fraud, or many other things that this book brings to light. And all the while he is describing his “Black Dog†and his running from trouble into strife, it is always so very readable. And if it wasn’t for the subject matter you’d have to say likeable. Still, it took me longer than I expected to finish it. Mainly, I think, because I wanted to pay attention to it, so I didn’t read it if I thought I might be distracted by the telly, or the radio.
I’m not a big reader of biographies, but I’d recommend this to anyone