BOOK OF THE WEEK with Linda Jennings. Mourinho (Special Signed Executive Edition), José Mourinho, ISBN 9781472234414 (Headline), BD85 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

This is the Special One’s very personal football odyssey. José Mourinho is both a visually sumptuous celebration of football coach’s managerial career so far and an enigmatic insight into his unique brand of football wisdom and philosophy.

In this executive, limited-edition of the legendary manager’s very first book, and in his own words and images, Mourinho charts the peaks and troughs of the opening 15 years of what has been a stellar rise to the summit of the global game.

Featuring more than 120 personally selected images (many of which are exclusive to the book), fans can experience an intimate and unmissable opportunity to understand and further appreciate this giant of the sport.

When Mourinho realised as a teenager that he was never going to be a great player, he decided he was going to become the best coach in the world. From translator and assistant to Sir Bobby Robson at Barcelona to multiple league and Champions League-winning manager at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and now Chelsea once again (if he holds on to the post after a disastrous start to the season).

As a manager, Mourinho is unique in winning eight league titles in four different European countries: in his homeland of Portugal with Porto, in England with Chelsea, in Italy with Inter Milan, and in Spain with Real Madrid. His managerial career may only be 15 seasons’ old, but he has already won 22 trophies – including two Champions League titles.

There are only 1,000 signed copies of this deluxe large format edition and, to the best of my knowledge, only two copies in Bahrain. Fully bound in black Brillianta cloth this would indeed make an exclusive present about a very ‘special’ man, for a very special man.

Read it now in paperback
The Marshmallow Test: Understanding Self-Control And How To Master It, Walter Mischel, ISBN 9780552168861 (Transworld), BD5.600 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

A child is presented with a marshmallow and given a choice: eat this one now, or wait and enjoy two later. What will she do? And, what are the implications for her behaviour later in life?

Walter Mischel’s now iconic ‘marshmallow test’, one of the most famous experiments in the history of psychology, proved that the ability to delay gratification is critical to living a successful and fulfilling life. Self-control not only predicts higher marks in school, better social and cognitive functioning and a greater sense of self-worth, it also helps us manage stress, pursue goals more effectively and cope with painful emotions.

But is willpower prewired, or can it be taught? In his ground-breaking new book, Mischel draws on decades of compelling research and life examples to explore the nature of willpower, identifying the cognitive skills and mental mechanisms that enable it and showing how these can be applied to challenges in everyday life – from weight control to quitting smoking, overcoming heartbreak, making major decisions and planning for retirement.

With profound implications for the choices we make in parenting, education, public policy and self-care, The Marshmallow Test will change the way we think about who we are and what we can be. And, since, as Mischel argues, a life with too much self-control can be as unfulfilling as one with too little … this book will also teach you when it’s time to ring the bell and enjoy that marshmallow.

My favourite read of the week
The Road To Little Dribbling, Bill Bryson, ISBN 9780857522344 (Transworld) BD11.200 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members

Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Great Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the bestselling travel book ever, and was also voted in a BBC poll the book that ‘best’ represents the nation.

Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey round the UK to see what has changed. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, by way of places that many people never get to at all, Bryson sets out to rediscover the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly unique country that he thought he knew but doesn’t altogether recognise any more.

Yet, despite Britain’s occasional failings and more or less eternal bewilderments, Bryson is still pleased to call that rainy island home. And, not just because of the cream teas, a noble history and an extra day off at Christmas. Once again, with his matchless homing instinct for the funniest and quirkiest, his unerring eye for the idiotic, the endearing, the ridiculous and the scandalous, Bryson gives us an acute and perceptive insight into all that is best and worst about Britain today.