This is an unusual and comprehensive guide to the World Cup and the countries that are taking part in it. The editors have commissioned 32 leading writers and journalists to write original pieces of reportage, travelogue, personal memoir and essays about the qualifying nations.
The result is an almanac, a guide, and a programme rolled into one.
The contributors include novelists Geoff Dyer, Dave Eggers, Nick Hornby, John Lanchester and Tim Parks.
Writers such as Hornby and Parks are already renowned for their work on football, both at home and abroad, while others are better known in different fields.
The guide also has all the information any fan needs to follow the World Cup right to the final the complete match schedule, results from past tournaments, and statistics about the players, teams, referees, host cities and stadia.
This is a highbrow contribution to World Cup literature, and does not offer the same level of visual satisfaction provided by the lavish coffee-table books on England's 1966 victory, but it is an informative and entertaining read.
THE THINKING FANS GUIDE TO THE WORLD CUP Ed Matt Weiland & Sean Wilsey (Abacus, £9.99)
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