Giving away tips, these dons sign book (9)

I believe the answer is:

thesaurus

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'book' is the definition.
(thesaurus is a kind of book)

'giving away tips these dons sign' is the wordplay.
'giving' indicates anagramming the letters (the letters give the letters for another word).
'away' becomes 'A' (abbreviation as used in sports fixtures).
'tips' suggests removing the centre (just the outer letters of the world).
'dons sign' becomes 'urus' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'these' with its middle taken out is 'thse'.
'a'+'thse'='athse'
'athse' with letters rearranged gives 'thesa'.
'thesa'+'urus'='THESAURUS'

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(Other definitions for thesaurus that I've seen before include "lists?" , "treasury" , "Dictionary" , "storehouse" , "Wordy gathering" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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