The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman: A Bone-shaking Tour through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands

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Harry Pearson

The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman

A Bone-shaking Tour through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands

Harry Pearson

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English

Bloomsbury Sport
19 May 2020

Cycling

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2020 – CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019

'A joy.' – Ned Boulting

Every nation shapes sport to test the character traits it most admires.

In The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman, committed Belgophile and road cycling obsessive Harry Pearson takes you on a journey across Flanders, through the lumpy horizontal rain, up the elbow juddering cobbled inclines, past the fans dressed as chickens and the shop window displays of constipation medicines, as he follows races big, small and even smaller through one glorious, muddy spring.

Ranging over 500 years of Flemish and European history, across windswept polders, along back roads and through an awful lot of beer cafes, Pearson examines the characters, the myths and rivalries that make Flanders a place where cycling is a religion and the riders its lycra-clad priests.

By: Harry Pearson
Imprint: Bloomsbury Sport
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm,
Weight: 252g
ISBN: 9781472945068
ISBN 10: 1472945069
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 19 May 2020
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Prologue: Brick chimneys and iron men 1. The Final 200 Kilometres 2. A Motor for a Heart 3. Donkeys and Carnivals 4. A Wednesday in Hell 5. Holey Socks and a Cool Head 6. It's a Family Affair 7. Show Me the Money 8. The Bulldog and the Red Guard 9. The Devil and Meester Maertens 10. D'ye Ken Tom Boonen? 11. Pot Bellies and Barbra Streisand 12. Staying Small Acknowledgements Index Picture credits

Harry Pearson has been shortlisted for both the William Hill and the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph prizes. Slipless in Settle was the 2012 MCC Book of the Year. The Far Corner has been named as one of the fifty greatest sports books of all time by both the Times and the Observer. His book, A Tall Man in a Low Land is the bestselling English language travelogue about Belgium.

Reviews for The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman: A Bone-shaking Tour through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands

"An enormously entertaining cycling journal * Times Literary Supplement * Absolutely splendid ... full of wonderful things. -- Rhod Sharp * BBC Radio 5 Live * Harry Pearson’s class and wit were the reason I wanted to start writing in the first place. To read his words on cycling and Flanders, two of the best things in the world, is a joy. -- Ned Boulting Entertaining -- Richard Williams * The Guardian * The ever amiable Harry Pearson invites us to accompany him on a tour of Flanders ... [the cyclists' stories] illuminate the landscape and history of this little understood pocket of Europe. * Guardian Books of the Year * A witty, engaging guide to the spring bike races in Flanders ... [Pearson] covers a lot of quirky historical ground in his ""bone-shaking tour"". * Telegraph Books of the Year *"