Rosemary Goring

Not just for fans of Liverpool FC, this biography of the Egyptian superstar Mohamed Salah offers an insight into a player who inhabits two worlds: Europe on one side, and Egypt, Africa and the Middle East on the other. Named African Footballer of the Year on two occasions, and a Champions League and Premier League winner, Salah is an inspirational figure, yet little is known about his off-the-pitch life. Sports journalist Simon Hughes attempts to fathom the personality and motives of the world’s best-known Muslim player.

WHEN Sir Chris Hoy announced the devastating news that he has terminal prostate cancer and has only a few years to live, everyone was aghast. How could one of the greatest and most popular sporting figures of our times fall victim to this savage disease? Why had medical treatment not overcome it? And how, in the face of such a prognosis, does he remain so positive, seeming to think more about others than himself?

As with much of Ali Smith’s fiction, whether novels or short stories, there’s a fairy tale quality to Gliff.  Nothing sugary or Disneyfied, but following in the tradition of Hans Christian Andersen, where children dance until they drop, or shiver on city streets selling matchsticks, or are left in the forest, in the hope they will die.

From the opening page, there is the assurance of being in good hands with this novel, the ease of the first chapter allowing you to settle in and let the author transport you where he will.

Some time ago in our local town, an elderly woman wove her way between oncoming cars as if navigating an obstacle course. In a sense, that was precisely what she was doing, since she hadn’t noticed she was heading the wrong way down a one-way street. Her frown suggested she thought it was the rest of us who were out of order by not clearing a path for her. Another day, a neighbour of advanced years, whose car had been boxed in, called my husband out of a café to assist her. Since he cannot d

When the judge sentenced neonatal nurse Lucy Letby last August to spend the rest of her life in prison, he described her as a “cold, calculated, cruel and relentless” killer - similar words to those levelled at Myra Hindley when she stood in the dock.

Chambers Dictionary defines gliff as the Scots word for “a fright, a scare; a glimpse or other transient experience”. That seems fitting for this novel’s opening, in which two children come home and find their house ringed in red paint. What can this mean?

The medical profession categorised what became known as chronic fatigue syndrome or ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) as self-inflicted and/or imaginary.

it has become apparent that the shop owner’s predilection for young female employees was an open secret. One media commentator has since written that he first heard about Al Fayed’s activities 25 years ago. Since 2005, the Met has received 19 accusations, from rape and sexual assault to trafficking, relating to events between 1979 and 2013. These dates indicate that the tycoon was a sex offender before and after he owned Harrods (1985- 2010).

Autumn seems to have arrived early this year, but the harvest is slightly later. Usually by the time schools go back fields are filling with hay bales, discs of gold lying around as if on a giant’s draughts board. Where I live in the Borders, however, it’s only in the past fortnight that the combine harvesters, balers and tractors have been out in force, bringing in the crops before the next storm.