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The life story of Belfast boxer, Eamonn Magee, has been named jointly the winner of the prestigious Book of the Year award by William Hill Sports in London.
This is the first time in the history of the award program that the prize, worth £ 30,000, is shared.
A Boy in the Water tells how author Tom Gregory became the youngest to swim on the English Channel in 1988, presented as an uplifting reading and a reminder of another era – the minimum age to attempt the feat now.
He shared the award with Paul D. Gibson, whose book The Lost Soul of Eamonn Magee is much darker and tells the story of the high-level welterweight in the ring and out, where the shocking violence was apparently his daily companion.
Gibson's manuscript had been rejected by 13 publishers before Mercier Press took it up, and it is the fifth boxing book to win the prestigious award that virtually guarantees best-seller status.
"In the 30 years that have elapsed since the launch of the award, we have sometimes considered, without ever deserving, a dead heat, but the (six) judges have found it impossible to separate these two books jointly deserving but very different" said Graham Sharpe, co-founder of the award. who recently retired after working for the British bookmaker for 45 years.
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