Cricket Books

[neville cardus]

Gary Kirsten's life story (ghostwrote by Neil Manthorp) is also worth a read.

[stumpski]

Rescuing this thread after a moribund month. Surprised at Archie, letting it go that long ...


Just thought I'd mention that I saw Martin Bicknell's book, Bickers, in, surprisingly, a Maidstone shop at the weekend. One of my favourite players so I've been trying to track it down. Very disappointed in what I saw - 195 pages in hardback, suspiciously large print and wide spaced lines (would have been only 120-130 pp in 'normal' print I reckon). £16.99 for a book I could read in two hours really isn't on - after 20 years in the game I'm surprised he didn't have more to say for himself.

[archie mac]

Originally Posted by stumpski

Rescuing this thread after a moribund month. Surprised at Archie, letting it go that long ...


Just thought I'd mention that I saw Martin Bicknell's book, Bickers, in, surprisingly, a Maidstone shop at the weekend. One of my favourite players so I've been trying to track it down. Very disappointed in what I saw - 195 pages in hardback, suspiciously large print and wide spaced lines (would have been only 120-130 pp in 'normal' print I reckon). £16.99 for a book I could read in two hours really isn't on - after 20 years in the game I'm surprised he didn't have more to say for himself.

Does sound a little pricey, you might have to wait for the paper pack or the Ebay cast off

[SJS]

I am reading a book I have had for sometimes but hadn't found the time to read.

The DON
By Roland Perry
Based on interviews with Sir Donald.
Publisher : Sidgewick and Jackson

As a habit, I rarely read books from the beginning to end but any chapter in it that I feel like. I started this one reading about the bodyline series (easily what influences me most to buy anything remotely coming from the Don himself) and I am absolutely fascinated. It is one of the finest accounts of that series that I have ever read. You are not just transported to those times, it actually puts you on the field.

Buy the book and read it just for this. You will never regret any money you may spend on getting it.

[pasag]

Originally Posted by SJS

I am reading a book I have had for sometimes but hadn't found the time to read.

The DON
By Roland Perry
Based on interviews with Sir Donald.
Publisher : Sidgewick and Jackson

As a habit, I rarely read books from the beginning to end but any chapter in it that I feel like. I started this one reading about the bodyline series (easily what influences me most to buy anything remotely coming from the Don himself) and I am absolutely fascinated. It is one of the finest accounts of that series that I have ever read. You are not just transported to those times, it actually puts you on the field.

Buy the book and read it just for this. You will never regret any money you may spend on getting it.

Am a big fan of this book, but it's not what you'd call critically acclaimed. Archie can explain further if he likes...

[pasag]

Ken Eastwood; A Life in Cricket

[Pratters]

Am reading Roebuck's In it to win it. Have bought Cardus on Cricket today and that should be arriving in 2-3 days.

[archie mac]

Originally Posted by pasag

Am a big fan of this book, but it's not what you'd call critically acclaimed. Archie can explain further if he likes...

Yes, most think it a hagiography (spelling), and are always annoyed with Perry for not providing sources for his quotes in his books. Although I did not mind The Don

[fredfertang]

The West Indies tour section of my 1977 Wisden is one of the most read parts of any. I was 16 at the time and the long hot summer and O-levels being out of the way by June meant I could watch virtually all of that fascinating series. I was always surprised at the time that nobody bothered to produce a book about it but lo and behold 31 years later a guy called David Tossell has produced a book with the above title. It is a marvellous book which not only gives a splendid account of a fascinating series but containing as it does the reflections on the series of many of the participants it gives a wonderfully rounded picture of the whole thing and places it all in its proper historical perspective.

Favourite bit – David Steel on Brian Close – I understand Steele is an after dinner speaker – I recall his deadpan Staffordshire accent – to hear him come out with the soundbites (well only one really) about Closey that are attributed to him here would be worth the admission money alone.

[SJS]

Originally Posted by archie mac

Yes, most think it a hagiography (spelling), and are always annoyed with Perry for not providing sources for his quotes in his books. Although I did not mind The Don

Well the book was first published in 1996. Don died 6 years later and he would have had a lot to say if there were inaccuracies. We know what a stickler Don was in these matters. He would have sued the chap and made him take the book off the shelves.

Secondly, Perry writes at the beginning of the book as "Acknowledgments"

"My thanks go to Sir Donald Bradman for granting me the interviews that formed the basis of this book. I wish also to acknowledge his wife, Lady Jessie Bradman, whose insights help give perspective on her husband, and the events and issues of their exceptional lives. Not to interview her is to miss a vital part of the Bradman greatness and achievement.....

"Of the hundreds of questions put to him, he let only one go through to the keeper _ was he for or against Australia becoming a republic? I give my own considered guess on his attitude in the last chapter but I could be way off the mark

"Often when I thought a question might be difficult or awkward for him, he totally surprised me with his answer."

No, I do not doubt the veracity of his claim. I am very skeptical about these things and would have been cynical were it published after the Don's demise.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by SJS

As a habit, I rarely read books from the beginning to end but any chapter in it that I feel like. I started this one reading about the bodyline series (easily what influences me most to buy anything remotely coming from the Don himself) and I am absolutely fascinated. It is one of the finest accounts of that series that I have ever read. You are not just transported to those times, it actually puts you on the field.

Your fascination with that volume has everything to do with your haphazard mode of reading it. Had you started from the beginning, I daresay, you would have found it soporific.

Perry has a style from which he is all but incapable of deviating. The best part of his book (based as it is primarily on scorecard exegesis) is the final chapter, in which he expounds his subject's post-playing (and scorecardless) affairs. There, at least, Perry draws considerably on the interviews of which he is so proud.

Oh, and keep an eye out for the yarn about Braddles's refusal to smile for the shutter -- irony at its best, that.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by archie mac

Yes, most think it a hagiography (spelling), and are always annoyed with Perry for not providing sources for his quotes in his books.

There is a prosaic humdrum to his match descriptions, which are dilated in the most self-consciously conformist prose imaginable. It often appears that he is trying to mimic Ralph Barker -- without the latter's depth of research.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by SJS

Well the book was first published in 1996. Don died 6 years later and he would have had a lot to say if there were inaccuracies. We know what a stickler Don was in these matters. He would have sued the chap and made him take the book off the shelves.

That was unnecessary. Bradman perused the proofs beforehand and pointed out what errors he could find then.

[stumpski]

Picked up Simon Rae's 1998 biography of WG Grace at Tunbridge Wells on Friday, for a tenner. Very happy with that. And if nothing else, it's very thorough - five chapters in and he's not yet out of his teens.

[neville cardus]

Originally Posted by stumpski

Picked up Simon Rae's 1998 biography of WG Grace at Tunbridge Wells on Friday, for a tenner. Very happy with that. And if nothing else, it's very thorough - five chapters in and he's not yet out of his teens.

A lovely book by a lovely man. He sent me a signed copy free of charge.