Unbreakable

Winner of the Telegraph Sports Book Awards Biography of the Year

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Summary

Discover a story that defies belief: National Velvet meets Downton Abbey with a splash of Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa's The Leopard.

* WINNER OF THE 2020 TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR *

* LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR *

Czechoslovakia, October 1937. Vast crowds have gathered to watch the Grand Pardubice steeplechase, Europe's most blood-curdling sporting test of manhood. With war looming, the race has a brutal political significance. The Nazis have sent the SS's all-conquering paramilitary horsemen to crush - yet again - the 'subhuman Slavs'. But Lata Brandisova, a silver-haired countess on a little golden mare, has other ideas...

'Heart-stopping reading' Clover Stroud, Daily Telegraph

Reviews

[An] astonishing story… beautifully pieced together by journalist Richard Askwith… Unbreakable is…much more than simply the story of a horse race. It is also a compelling insight into the fading days of the Habsburg empire and the rise of the women’s liberation movement between the two wars… exceptional…[and] heart-stopping reading which left me in tears
Clover Stroud, Daily Telegraph

About the author

Richard Askwith

Richard Askwith has been a journalist for over 40 years. He has written six previous books, including his modern classic on fell running, Feet in the Clouds, which won the Best New Writer category at the British Sports Book Awards and was shortlisted for the William Hill and Boardman Tasker prizes, and he is now one of the UK's most celebrated writers on running. Running Free was shortlisted for the Thwaites-Wainwright Prize, and his evocative biography of Emil Zátopek, Today We Die A Little, was shortlisted in the Cross Sports Book Awards. His most recent book, Unbreakable: the Countess, the Nazis and the World's Most Dangerous Horse Race, won Biography of the Year at the Telegraph Sports Book Awards in 2020.

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