Book excerpt: The Oxford Companion to Australian Sport appears in a revised, updated and greatly expanded new edition. Produced by the Australian Society for Sports History, this is the first authoritative and encyclopedic reference work on all sports played in Australia. It provides a comprehensive overview of the history and character of the innumerable codes that constitute the Australian sporting character. All sports are covered - not just the major ones like cricket, Australian Rules, lawn tennis, and horse-racing. The Companion offers succinct and informative entries on famous sportsmen and women, and on major institutions, competitions and venues. The Companion also offers thematic essays on crucial aspects of the history, culture and professionalization of sport in Australia. For the first time readers have access to biographies of sporting champions from different codes, all of whom rub shoulders in this literary pantheon. For the second edition, the editors have commissionedfour major new thematic essays: Coaching, Disabled Sportsmen and Women, Regionalism, and the Olympic Winter Games. Seven more sports have been added (badminton, bicycle racing, curling, fives, petanque, ring bowls, and surfing), along with 38 additional clubs. The second edition boasts 240 new biographies. One of its major features is a `list of lists', which provides full details about major competitions such as the Stawell Gift, Davis Cup finals, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, the Sheffield Shield, Brownlow Medallists - to name just a few of the lists contained in this Appendix. Greatly expanded and offering a readable cultural history of Australian sport, the Oxford Companion to Australian Sport is essential reading for sportsmen and women, administrators, journalists and sports followers.