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  • The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman

  • A Bone-Shaking Tour Through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands
  • Written by: Harry Pearson
  • Narrated by: Harry Pearson
  • Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 rating)

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The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman

Written by: Harry Pearson
Narrated by: Harry Pearson
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Publisher's Summary

Bloomsbury presents The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman by Harry Pearson, read by Harry Pearson.  

Longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2019.

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 the rivalries that make Flanders a place where cycling is a religion and the riders its Lycra-clad priests.
©2019 Harry Pearson (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Pty Ltd
History of Sports Cycling Western Travel Writing & Commentary Europe
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What the critics say

"An enormously entertaining cycling journal." (Times Literary Supplement)

"A joy." (Ned Boulting)

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Profile Image for Michael Tipping

Funny, Fascinating & Revealing

I listen to this book every February now before Omloop and opening weekend. It’s the perfect way to re-immerse oneself in the unique mood of Flemish racing and the understated grandeur and grit of these Spring Classics.

Harry Pearson is a wonderful voice — if there are similar books of his out there for French and Italian races I’ll be reading them too.

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