Inside the 2012 London Olympic Games
by Marc Jenner
Amazon Digital Services (e-book)

This book wouldn't deserve even a bronze medal if it were an Olympic contender. Containing Games factoids, the tome begins fairly strongly but loses stamina towards the middle, by which time it has gone through the symbols and traditions associated with the event, and how sports and the athletes themselves are chosen. Something that could sustain a Friday night pub discussion is the winning logo, which earned Wolff Olins ?400,000 (HK$4.8 million) even though some felt it juvenile, others thought it resembled the swastika, and Iran threatened to boycott the Olympics because of complaints that it spelled out the word 'Zion'. Readers will also learn that the gold medal is only 1.34 per cent made up of the precious yellow metal, while the bulk of it (92.5 per cent) is silver and the rest copper; that London is the first city to host the Olympics for a third time; and the most expensive seats at the opening ceremony cost ?2,012. Clues that the book was a last-minute project are evident in the typos and an insubstantial end section about the athletic events.