The World’s Weirdest Sports (Paul Connolly, Murdoch Books, $24.95 pb, ISBN 9781921259975, November) ****

Ever wanted to go Bog Snorkelling? How’s about a match of Dwile Flonking? Care for a vigorous game of Uppies and Doonies? These are the names of just some of the sports listed in this fascinating and informative compendium of the strange things people do in the dark corners of the sporting world (quite often, it must be said, fuelled by copious amounts of alcohol). Uppies and Doonies, for example, is kind of super no-rules rugby match played in the village of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands, where mobs of opposing villagers square off in a day of violent pursuit of a cork-filled leather ball. The book’s strength is that it makes the weirdest sporting pastime seem completely logical (and even worth trying). Paul Connolly has done a great job of investigating the unusual and insane games that people play. His explanations are clear, often with a historical and social context outlined. And there are great sections at the end of each chapter that link the sport in question to other questionable sports of a similar ilk. This book will make the perfect present for the intelligent sports fanatic sick of cricketers’ biographies. The only downside is that there are no illustrations or photographs. It would be nice to have evidence that people actually do some of these things.

Shane Strange is bookseller at Riverbend Books, voted Australian Independent Bookstore of the Year 2007

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2007, Thorpe-Bowker