What is the Best Cricket Book you've Ever Read?

[Son Of Coco]

Is his biography any good? I just got it off Ebay and am waiting for it in the mail.

And very soon, I shall have all of Steve Waughs Diary series......did he do one in his last year of cricket?

I'm not sure, I haven't read his biography. Also not sure about S.Waugh, the last diary I have of his is 2001 or something like that.

 

[Top_Cat]

The worst would be A Year to Remember - Mark Waugh. Absolutely terrible, provides a good argument for ghost writers, I get the feeling he let his ego get in the way of his writing a bit.

I've read that one and I'm pretty sure he did have a ghost writer for that one which is frightening!

That said, it doesn't match 'The Gloves Are Off' for unbridled crappiness!

 

[RigorMortis]

We publish a fair amount of cricket books at work, so I get to read a fair batch of them. Mystery Spinner and The Big Ship are great works by Gideon Haigh. A Wayward Genius is a great read about Chuck Fleetwood-Smith and his life and times. Playing with Fire is another one on the must-read list. One that I didn't expect to be all that good was by Steve Dunne, his autobiography called Alone in the Middle. It's a brilliant read, especially the first chapter. You'll understand if/when you read it.

In the sin bin of books are stuff like: Adam Parore's book, Wicked Keeper, which is dross; The Full Story by Merv Hughes which while being in-depth still came across with a fair smattering of ego; anything by Tom Gleisner aka Warwick Todd, for obvious reasons; and Remembering Hookesy which was extremely opportunistic for my liking.

YMMV of course...

 

[Isolator]

"The Joy of Cricket". Actually the only cricket book I've read, but it's very good.

 

[SJS]

"The Joy of Cricket". Actually the only cricket book I've read, but it's very good.

for an only book, you did very well indeed. One of the best !!

 

[sportychic33]

I didn't think either Cairns bio or Fleming new autobio were very good at all.

Have to agree with you there about Fleming's book. It was nothing new and it was hard to read as he kept repeating what was written by Richard Boock.

 

[Dydl]

I am only about ¾ of the way through it, Justin Langer's Power Of Passion. So far been really good...

 

[archie mac]

I am a bit of a Cricketing reading nut! hard to pick just one, so broke them up into catergorys
General Cricket
The Summer Game by Gidion Haigh
Sing All a Green Willow by Ronald Mason (not for everyone)

Biography
An English Hero by Iain Wilton (C.B. Fry)
The Reasons Why by David Foot (Walter Hammond)
The Big Ship by Gideon Haigh (W.W. Armstrong)

Tour Books
The Turn of The Wheel by Percey Fender (1928-29 Eng in Aust)
Confessions of a 13 Man by John Harms (Eng in OZ 1998-99)

Quote By Top Cat
<Worst: Much easier - Tim Zohrer's 'The Gloves Are Off'. I defy anyone to beat that as the worst.>
I thought it was okay

Try Doug Walters Looking for Runs a must read for insomniacs

 

[Pratters]

I am reading Pundits from Pakistan at the moment. Excellent book by Rahul Bhattacharya on tour with India in Pakistan 2003-04.

 

[Top_Cat]

<Worst: Much easier - Tim Zohrer's 'The Gloves Are Off'. I defy anyone to beat that as the worst.>
I thought it was okay

It was literate and grammatical and that's all I'll give it. But as far as the writing style, sheesh................ I really liked Tim Zoehrer and certainly WACA's record for treating its senior players is atrocious but geez, he writes like Ian Botham; "Y'know all that bad stuff I've been accused of? All lies. I'm going to counter it all with my opinion and you should just trust me." I believe this is known as 'damage control'.

 

[archie mac]

I think I know where you are coming from Top_Cat
Yes it was very opinionated, but I enjoyed some of the behind the scenes stuff, with especially Marto comming across as a ******. (one of my favourites)
Some good stuff regarding Bobby Simpson and the relationship some of the players had with him. I also enjoyed the comments regarding the captainicy dispute in WA.
But hey it would not make it into my top 200

 

[Top_Cat]

Yes it was very opinionated, but I enjoyed some of the behind the scenes stuff, with especially Marto comming across as a ******. (one of my favourites)
Some good stuff regarding Bobby Simpson and the relationship some of the players had with him. I also enjoyed the comments regarding the captainicy dispute in WA.

Good points all. I guess I was more reacting to the hysterical nature of it. I thought the bits about when his mother died were interesting too.

 

[archie mac]

Top_Cat I also enjoyed Mystery Spinner, but by the time I looked at my list it was starting to turn into a Gideon Haigh appreciation page.
I think him the best Cricket writer in Australia at the moment, I was hoping he would write a bio of Keith Miller, but alas he has decided his next book will be about the James Hardie mess.

 

[SJS]

There are so many superb cricket books. Difficult to pick one.

1. Beyond a boundary - CLR James
2. Sort of a Cricket Person - Jim Swanton
3. The Joy of Cricket (anthology)
4. For the love of the game (anthology)
5. Pavillioned in Splendour - AA Thomson
6. Cricket Bouquet - AA Thomson
7. Cricketers of my Times - AA Thomson
8. Cricket : The Golden Ages - AA Thomson
9. A History of Cricket : Harry Altham & EW Swanton
10. Good days - Neville Cardud
11. The Summer game - Cardus
12. Cricket All the Year - Cardus
13. Bating from Memory - Fingleton
14. The Jubilee Book of Cricket - Ranji
15. Cricketer's Companion (antholgy)
16. The Great Cricketer by Thomson
17. Cricket My Pleasure - Thomson
18. The Great Cricketer - Thomson
19. The Art Of Captaincy - Brearley
20. Don Bradman : Challenging the Myth - Brett Hutchins


It is still too short a list and one would like to add more

 

[archie mac]

SJS
Yes A A Thomson was apparently one of Bradman's favourite authors.
Surprised at your No 20: I thought Hutchins simply constructed a number of hypothothesis of his own making and than systematically dismantled them, to fit his own conclusions.

I have read a number of times that 'Beyond a Boundry" is one of the three best books ever written about the game. I have also read that it would have been twice the book if it was half the size. imho some where in the middle would be about right.

Have only read about half the books on your list, but enjoyed the ones I have read except No. 20

 

[Pratters]

I have read a number of times that 'Beyond a Boundry" is one of the three best books ever written about the game.

Which are the other two books?

 

[archie mac]

They vary depending who you read, or they do not list the other two.
The three which receive the most mentions I think would be John Nyren's The Young Cricketers Tudor
Batsmanship by C.B. Fry and Beyond a Boundry
I am happy to be corrected though.

 

[Marius]

Letting Rip by Simon Wilde is probably the best cricket book I've ever read. It is about the fast bowling hey days of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Kepler, Kepler Wessels' biography by Edward Griffiths I also enjoyed.

 

[archie mac]

Letting Rip by Simon Wilde is probably the best cricket book I've ever read. It is about the fast bowling hey days of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Kepler, Kepler Wessels' biography by Edward Griffiths I also enjoyed.

I have a copy of the Wilde book, but have not had a chance to read it yet.
Was a little disappointed that the Kepler Bio was not for sale in this Country (OZ) as he played a large chuck of his Cricket here and was one of my favorites. In fact we do not seem to recieve any SA bios here. Do you see many Aus. bios in SA?

 

[BoyBrumby]

For anyone who's interested there is a list of the top 50 sports books of all time as voted on by readers in today's Observer Sport Monthly. Link here:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/osm/index/0,7432,1476499,00.html

Cricket is pretty well represented. The top placed cricketing book is CLR James's Beyond A Boundary @ 3 which, to my shame, I have never read. I am pleased to see Peter Obourne's wonderful D'Oliveira biograpghy make the list tho. Cricketing books in the 50 are:

3. Beyond A Boundary - CLR James;
6. The Art of Captaincy - Mike Brearley;
19. A Lot of Hard Yakka - Simon Hughes;
31. Anyone but England: Cricket and the National Malaise - Mike Marqusee;
34. Basil D'Oliveira - Peter Obourne;
39. Harold Gimblett, tormented genius of cricket - David Foot; &
44. Close of Play - Neville Cardus.