For what could have been a subject tied to statistics this book is such an easy-going read on the factors which help to produce elite sports stars. It is split into sections such as how the location of a person upbringing can affect their career and if they have any siblings to how mental awareness sometimes can be more important then natural skill and how even the best in their sport are constantly training and accepting constructive criticism to be the best.
There are some interesting stories and interviews with football players Jamie Carragher and Andrés Iniesta, whose constant awareness and anticipation of the game helped them achieve their careers to snooker player Stephen Hendry who applied different techniques and challenges to improve his game.
An excellent addition to the library of any sports fan.

It's very disappointing to receive a chapter sampler when the Netgalley page suggests a whole book. They aren't useful, for bloggers they are pretty much pointless and as a bookseller an introduction is far more helpful in summarising the content and the likely market. I did read this sampler, as I am interested in the topic, but unfortunately the content fell below expectations. Covering fast ball delivery, a niche but not uninteresting topic, the author discusses tennis. cricket and baseball. I would think some mention of football penalties would have also been interesting? The tennis section is the most interesting, but demands significant knowledge from the reader of the sport, such as the "deuce side" in serving which I do not know. As a British reader this presumption makes the baseball section almost unreadable.

I am also concerned, especially as this was the chapter chosen for sampling, that not a single woman is interviewed or mentioned in this chapter, not even in the discussion on tennis. As this chapter is supposedly representative of the book as a whole this is exceedingly out of touch and for me makes the book impossible to recommend.