Unbreakable: Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2023

Product Information

O’Sullivan is candid when detailing the struggles with which both “Snooker Ronnie” and the tea-loving, scone-scoffing “Ordinary Ronnie” have contended. He writes about how both his parents were imprisoned while he was still a teenager, his own time as a distant father and his spell in rehab. This rationalist, therapeutic approach – which he owes to his time with the psychiatrist Steve Peters – is also evident in O’Sullivan’s treatment of his iconic sporting moments, such as his tightly contested World Championship semi-final against John Higgins in 2022, which O’Sullivan won, going on to claim his seventh title. Unbreakable provides a fascinating insight into the fortitude and fragility of an elite sportsperson’s mind. He has a good relationship with both his parents, who are divorced (his father was released from prison in 2010 after serving 18 years), and has been with his partner, Holby City actress Laila Rouass, for a decade (although they briefly split last year). In some ways, he is looking forward to his snooker career coming to an end — he predicts he may continue for another couple of years, or longer — but while he’s still doing well, he won’t quit. New music can be a tough sell, as Birmingham Contemporary Music Group found when only a handful of... ★★★★☆

Frank Adamson, my first coach, for not spending more time with him in his later years. I feel bad about that. Spain: Parliamentary ceremony in Madrid to mark the 18th birthday of Crown Princess Leonor of Spain. and was a major driver of the transatlantic slave trade. Conversely, during the American War of Independence, British troops in the South were badly afflicted with malaria while American soldiers suffered far less because they had long lived with the disease. Elsewhere, the haemophilia endemic in Europe’s interrelated royal families – the “curse of the Coburgs” – led to the fall of both the Spanish and Russian monarchies. Biology determines more than personal destiny. Brian Eno has just won the Golden Lion for music at the Venice Biennale, which obliged him to perform with an orchestra. Anyone expecting classical conformity from this boffin of sound, however, hasn’t been paying attention for the past... ★★★★☆He praised the Belgian, saying: “I thought Luca was unbelievable. You talk about talent – [in football] you look at someone who does things with the ball and you think: ‘How does he do that?’ And Luca is that player. I got falsely accused of a kidnapping when I was 17 or 18. It was scary: they took me and my mate in separately, strip-searched me, took my car away for forensics, put me in a white paper suit. I was like: “What’s going on here?” Neil Parish is the Tory who was caught watching porn in the Commons. Now he stars in Channel 4’s Banged Up Reading this is like watching an O'Sullivan break: hypnotic, dazzling and impossible to tear yourself away from.' - STEPHEN FRY

Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she has “nothing to hide” but repeatedly refused to say whether she deleted messages sought by the UK Covid inquiry. The former first minister was challenged over reports that she destroyed communications that have been requested by the investigation. The Scottish... Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she has “nothing to hide” but repeatedly refused to say whether she deleted messages sought by the UK Covid inquiry. The former first minister was challenged over reports that she destroyed communications that have been requested by the investigation. The Scottish... Nicola Sturgeon has insisted she has “nothing to hide” but repeatedly refused to say whether she deleted messages sought by the... The Tom he’s referring to is sports journalist and co-writer Tom Fordyce, and Ronnie admitted their love of running helped to build the bond before sitting down to write. Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from Bookshop.org, who support independent bookshops Now, though, he is able to separate his snooker life from his other interests, and the balance has helped him love the sport again. Framed around the many lessons Ronnie has learned from his extraordinary career, Unbreakable takes us beyond the success and record-breaking achievements to share the reality - and brutality - of making it to the very top, whatever your field. Ronnie is the first to say he doesn't have all the answers, but in sharing the experiences that have shaped him and mistakes that have made him, he hopes to help readers navigate their own personal challenges and obstacles, and in turn reach their maximum potential.He said: “That was the deal breaker for me, like writing a book I just had to trust, he knew what he was doing. In his second autobiography, Ronnie O’Sullivan describes his biggest challenge: “To become someone I could look at in the mirror and not turn away from.” Such vulnerability might not be what you’d expect to hear from a snooker legend. But Unbreakable adds to a growing subgenre of sports media that goes beyond surface-level accounts of an athlete’s career highs, instead focusing on the psychological tolls of elite sport and daily life – and how they often overlap. Reaching a new stage in his snooker career, Ronnie admitted his love of the game, and his incredible talent, is beginning to outweighing his need to win.