New music can be a tough sell, as Birmingham Contemporary Music Group found when only a handful of... ★★★★☆ Now it feels a lot better: everyone is just in a better place. I just want to see her and her daughter [Rouass has a teenage daughter from a previous relationship] and her family, who are like my family, happy.”

He praised the Belgian, saying: “I thought Luca was unbelievable. You talk about talent – [in football] you look at someone who does things with the ball and you think: ‘How does he do that?’ And Luca is that player.I’ve not mellowed, in that I’ve changed my personality, but I’ve learned to just not take myself too seriously. I’m much more philosophical.” I got falsely accused of a kidnapping when I was 17 or 18. It was scary: they took me and my mate in separately, strip-searched me, took my car away for forensics, put me in a white paper suit. I was like: “What’s going on here?” In a career spanning over three decades, Ronnie O'Sullivan's journey to becoming the greatest snooker player of all time has been filled with extremes.

Ronnie is searingly honest, candidly funny, and thought provokingly brilliant in Unbreakable. I devoured it.' - NIHAL ARTHANAYAKE Snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan is breaking down the lessons he’s learnt in his formidable career in his new book, Unbreakable. Raised in Essex, O’Sullivan, 47, won his first UK Championship at the age of 17. He is regarded as the greatest snooker player of all time, having won seven world, seven Masters and seven UK titles. He is currently the world No 1. He published his first autobiography, Ronnie, in 2003; his latest, Unbreakable, has just been released. He lives in Essex with actor Laila Rouass and has three children.He has a good relationship with both his parents, who are divorced (his father was released from prison in 2010 after serving 18 years), and has been with his partner, Holby City actress Laila Rouass, for a decade (although they briefly split last year).

As a detective story, the account can be ponderous, comprising false starts and complaints about relatives reluctant to revisit the past. As a portrait of life in a changing Ukraine, though, the narrative sparkles with details of rural life and Soviet-inherited bureaucratic absurdity. The denouement will be no surprise to anyone familiar with the horrors of Stalinism. Belim describes her family as having “survived more tragedies than should be allotted by fate”, a characterisation just as applicable to Ukraine itself. The Rooster House is a moving account of a still much-misunderstood country, given extra poignancy by the disaster now unfolding. O’Sullivan is candid when detailing the struggles with which both “Snooker Ronnie” and the tea-loving, scone-scoffing “Ordinary Ronnie” have contended. He writes about how both his parents were imprisoned while he was still a teenager, his own time as a distant father and his spell in rehab. This rationalist, therapeutic approach – which he owes to his time with the psychiatrist Steve Peters – is also evident in O’Sullivan’s treatment of his iconic sporting moments, such as his tightly contested World Championship semi-final against John Higgins in 2022, which O’Sullivan won, going on to claim his seventh title. Unbreakable provides a fascinating insight into the fortitude and fragility of an elite sportsperson’s mind. Framed around the many lessons Ronnie has learned from his extraordinary career, Unbreakable takes us beyond the success and record-breaking achievements to share the reality - and brutality - of making it to the very top, whatever your field. Ronnie is the first to say he doesn't have all the answers, but in sharing the experiences that have shaped him and mistakes that have made him, he hopes to help readers navigate their own personal challenges and obstacles, and in turn reach their maximum potential. Reaching a new stage in his snooker career, Ronnie admitted his love of the game, and his incredible talent, is beginning to outweighing his need to win.I put a lot of work into it,” he shared. “Obviously when you do a book, you want it to be authentic and people have got to read it, so we wanted to do the best job we and Tom did, we put our heart and soul into it.” O’Sullivan has been described as “the most naturally gifted player ever”. He was potting balls from age seven and had scored his first century by 10, beating all in his wake before turning professional at 16.

The Tom he’s referring to is sports journalist and co-writer Tom Fordyce, and Ronnie admitted their love of running helped to build the bond before sitting down to write. At 47, he’s been at the top of his game for longer than many of his peers. Yet it wasn’t an easy start for the former ‘bad boy’ of snooker, given his family history (his father was jailed for murder when O’Sullivan was 16) and his battles with drugs, alcohol and depression. Brian Eno has just won the Golden Lion for music at the Venice Biennale, which obliged him to perform with an orchestra. Anyone expecting classical conformity from this boffin of sound, however, hasn’t been paying attention for the past... ★★★★☆ Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from Bookshop.org, who support independent bookshopsHe said: “That was the deal breaker for me, like writing a book I just had to trust, he knew what he was doing. Spain: Parliamentary ceremony in Madrid to mark the 18th birthday of Crown Princess Leonor of Spain.