A BESTSELLER from the 1980s written by former Olympic coach Tom McNab is being self published by the author after his publisher refused to re-release it.

Tom, who has lived in St Albans for many years and is a supporter of charities like Grove House, topped The Times bestseller list with his novel Flanagan’s Run in 1982.

It was translated into 16 languages and hundreds of thousands of copies were sold worldwide.

But when Tom approached his publisher to release a new edition in 2009, he was turned down – despite the imminent release of a Miramax film adaptation with Quentin Tarantino and Harvey Weinstein on board as producers.

Tom felt that a whole new generation of readers would be interested in the novel so he approached the self-publishing house Authorhouse to re-publish it himself.

Tom told Radio Four’s Open Book programme recently that his attitude was that if Flanagan’s Run was good enough to be read by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world in 1982, then there must be another group of people equally capable of enjoying it.

Flanagan’s Run tells the story of a 3,000-mile marathon across the United States in the Depression era. It follows 2,000 hopefuls as they begin the gruelling race from New York to Los Angeles – a race ultimately beset by danger and disaster as the American sports establishment conspire to sabotage the event.

Flanagan’s Run is available from Amazon UK, the publisher’s website www.authorhouse.co.uk and www.tommcnab.com from �10.50.