Having lived and worked in St. Vincent in the mid 90's I read Beyond a Boundary (1963) a memoir on cricket written by the Trinidadian C. L. R. James. It was a fascinating history of Windies cricket through the lens of culture and colonial politics. By far the most important cricket book ever written!
Geoff, I'd say Beyond a Boundary is one of the rare books where it is worth becoming familiar with the core activity (cricket in this case) simply in order to appreciate the author's work. I'd add "Bridge in the Menagerie" by Victor Mollo to that list, for those who know nothing of the game of contract bridge.
Gideon, my father and I have well over 1000 cricket titles in our collection.
When he was a boarder from a dairy farm in Allora in Toowoomba from 1951-1954, a Wanderers side including Ken “Slasher” Mackay came to play the school XI and my Dad was Slasher’s host including carrying his personal belongings while he changed into his whites.
The first proper cricket book I ever read as a 10 year old book was Dad’s personally signed copy of “Slasher Opens Up”.
I have never stopped reading cricket books for 44 years and the comfort, solitude and familiarity they provide is a joy and solace.
Your writing has been a key part of that for a long time.
Only got round to Golden Boy at the start of this year but it went straight in to - at the very least - my top five.
I’ve enjoyed dipping in and out of ‘Wounded Tiger’ by Peter Oborne during England’s recent series in Pakistan and that might still remain my favourite cricket book.
Curiously, it has never been harder to get a cricket book published, and it's never been easier. Harder, because publishing is now relentlessly focussed on the bottom line, and if the cricket book isn't about Bradman or Warnie, they doubt it will sell. But easier, too, because advances in technology and online distribution make it easier for micro-publishers and self-publishers to produce books for a small readership.
You mention Jack Pollard: last week I was doing some half-hearted research for something that might turn into a book but probably won't. I found an article by John Arlott on a player I was looking into - written for the Daily Mail in, say, June 1950. Two days later I came across an article on the same player, under Jack Pollard's by-line, in an Australian paper a couple of months later, and it was almost word for word the same. He'd stolen the whole thing, the old bastard. It's said that good artists borrow and great artists steal, and by that yardstick, Pollard was a great artist.
Thank you! You may be 16% of the market for it. One of my boys asks me why I write books that no one reads about people no one has heard of, and the only sensible answer I can give is that I write books I would like to read myself, but haven't been written. Parker... well, I'll be interested to see what you think (not much feedback yet from its other five readers).
Two years ago I wrote a book celebrating the 125th year of my old cricket club's establishment in 1897. The cost to produce it - around $10,000 - was underwritten by the club, although with sponsorships and sales (almost 100% to club members) it made the club a tidy profit. I know of others who are self-publishing local community histories and, as you say, with modern technology it is possible to economically produce publications for a limited audience.
I was asked to write the history of Western Suburbs cricket club, and said yes, The second question was "Can you do it in six weeks?" It may not be my very best work.
I did make deadline! It was a book and a DVD (remember those?) with old footage and interviews I did with people like Bob Simpson and Alan Davidson. But it could have been so much better.
Greg Chappell's biography, written by Adrian McGregor, is still the best cricketers biography I've read or owned. Because the author was a seasoned journalist, and he did the 'interviews' of Greg himself, and so didn't hedge his bets in discussing all of the low parts of his career as well as the highs. The chapters on the underarm and his succession of ducks would never have been so thoroughly examined if Chappell had written it himself. I think it is a masterpiece.
Patrick Keane's biography of Merv Hughes was also terrific, a much better insight into his career and his own controversies than I had imagined it would be.
And until you have read Tim May's magnificent "Mayhem!: The True(ish) Story Of The Australian Cricket Team On Tour" then you are missing out on one of the great cricket books.
I have every Max Walker book from the 1980's. "Caught Marsh Bowled Lillee" by Ian Brayshaw is a favourite, as is his book of his own cricket tales. Frank Tyson's books that relate the Test series of Australia and England in 1974/75 "Test of Nerves" and the West Indies in 1975/76 "The Hapless Hookers" made me want to write reviews of my own cricket club's cricket seasons, which eventually I did for presentation nights over a number of years.
So many cricket books. But not quite to your collection Gideon. Though so many of yours are a part of mine.
My father took me to the SCG for Chappell’s last test against Pakistan 40 years ago. I was 8yo and we sat in the Sheridan Stand and saw Chappell bat with Kim Hughes and go past Bradman’s aggregate of 6996.
I then received that book shortly after which was my first cricket book. I still have it - although my wife isn’t sure why such books are kept …
Very few non Aus / UK folks here, so perhaps I will be able to contribute something different.
As a kid, I used to read these monthly Hindi magazines called Cricket Samrat (meaning "Cricket Emperor") - very little editorial / opinion stuff but lots of reporting from around the world. Then came something called Sportstar (a weekly magazine) which went beyond cricket and had lots of editorial / opinion stuff.
The game changed for me when my mother got me this book called Cricket ke Charchit Vivaad (meaning Cricket's Biggest Controversies) from a hawker at a railway station in Central India. It was a terribly written book but it really opened my mind to the history of the game - stuff like Bodyline, Aluminum bat, India at Jamaica in '76.
Been on a book reading spree since then and of course, GH (whose name I have taken the liberty to Indianize - Giddu Hegde) and Frith with their books have been such great teachers for me about things, events, people related to cricket in the past. Cheers to cricket books and cricket book writers. :)
Where do I start. My father had a million cricket books and they are passing through the generations happily. Here are my faves:
1. Mike at Wrykyn - P.G.Wodehouse - absolutely loved the descriptions of the matches as well as the concept of having nets in your own backyard
2. Grimmett on Taking wickets
3. The Art of Cricket - Don Bradman (of course)
4. On Top Down Under - Ray Robinson
5. Wisden 1976 - my first. Used to love looking through the public school averages and the performances of the Professionals in the Lancashire Leagues
6. The Vincibles - Gideon Haigh - there need to be more of these. The precursor to The Grade Cricketer and bloody entertaining.
7. Lillywhite's Cricketer's Annual (got 1874 and 1875 from recollection)
8. Arlott & Trueman on Cricket
9. Warwick Todd Diaries - Tom Gleisner. Just superb.
Plenty of autobiographies etc.. but the above selection are the ones that have made the most impact, at various times, for various reasons. May the genre live on...
Tim is correct, the Vincibles was a hugely entertaining account of club cricket. I also have good memories of Marcus Berkmann's "Rain Men", a very funny book about village cricket in England, published nearly 30 years ago.
I love when Warwick Todd draws his own name out of a hat to win the car at a charity auction he is supporting. The CEO of the charity suggests it would be improper for him to take the car as the charity’s ambassador. So he solves that problem by immediately withdrawing his support. Brilliant!
Love the thread. Never had cricket books as a child. Have read many but most are post 1991. Interestingly I was not into the history of cricket then as it is not relatable to my family background. But loving cricket as a child the ability to read and find information due to the internet has opened my knowledge. I am more interested in the history of the other cricketing cultures than Australia and England….possibly because I have been considered an outsider who could nevertheless swing a ball as a lefty pacer.
Ed Cowan's In The Firing Line and Simon Hughes's A Lot of Hard Yakka are both favourites of mine. I enjoyed the introspection and accompanying self-doubt the authors were willing to share with the reader about the realities of a first class cricketer's life. Of your writing, Gideon, The Cricket War, The Summer Game and The Mystery Spinner are all thoroughly engaging books I enjoy returning to - thank you.
My cricket library runs to about 250 volumes, none of which will ever be disposed of while I'm still around.
One that stands out is Peter May's Book Of Cricket, first published in 1956. I got this as a Christmas present in 1958, the year I discovered there was more to cricket than just a game you played with your mates in the backyard. Eight-year-old me lapped it up and I can still recall from memory a passage in which May described how, in his first Test in 1951, he was bowled through the gate by South African seamer Geoff Chubb.
Another durable volume is Richie Benaud's Way Of Cricket, released in 1961. My copy was a 12th birthday present in 1962, by which time I was a budding leg-spinner. Benaud wrote of how he cut his run-up down in 1957 and almost immediately became a better bowler. Good advice, although it didn't work for me.
Thank you Gideon, a wonderful article. Love the picture of your library. Four books stand out from my youth. Fred by John Arlott (the paperback version from 1974). The Fast Men by David Frith, which I bought in 1975 with my father from John McKenzie's bookshop in Ewell, which is still there today. Christopher Martin-Jenkins' Assault on the Ashes on the 1974/75 Ashes (as an aspiring fast bowler Dennis Lillee was my hero) and Ray Robinson's On Top Down Under (also 1975). All brilliant books that have stood the test of time. The front covers of all four books are as evocative as the album covers of my favourite LPs from the same era – Bowie, Queen, Stevie Wonder. The albums and the books are still with me today (with a few others).
Lambs To The Slaughter, by Graham Yallop. I had long thought Rodney Hogg to be up there with Lillee and Thomson after that golden summer of 41 wickets in a weak team thrashed by England. In those days it was war between Packer's lot and those who chose to stay behind; I stuck with the latter and I needed a hero. Sadly Yallop's book opened my eyes to what Hogg was really like and it wasn't long before AB came along to take over as my No.1.
Both Graham Yallop and Rodney Hogg played in my old competition well after they had retired from first class cricket. Hogg, even in his 50’s, was still fearsomely quick and used to delight in telling incoming batsmen to go and get a helmet. Yallop coached a different club for a year or two but I don’t recall him making a ton of runs.
My beloved must rue the day, 2nd of May 1996, when she bought me my first cricket book, a copy of After Stumps Were Drawn ~ The Best of Ray Robinson's cricket writing selected by Jack Pollard 3 years after Ray's passing...... 2616 cricket books later........
“One for the road” by Doug Walters. A combination of cricket and life stories. My dad got it signed by Dougie. He convinced me he’d driven from Melbourne to Sydney to get it signed. I somehow didn’t believe him but he’s never to this day confirmed or denied it.
Having lived and worked in St. Vincent in the mid 90's I read Beyond a Boundary (1963) a memoir on cricket written by the Trinidadian C. L. R. James. It was a fascinating history of Windies cricket through the lens of culture and colonial politics. By far the most important cricket book ever written!
Good choice.
Geoff, I'd say Beyond a Boundary is one of the rare books where it is worth becoming familiar with the core activity (cricket in this case) simply in order to appreciate the author's work. I'd add "Bridge in the Menagerie" by Victor Mollo to that list, for those who know nothing of the game of contract bridge.
Gideon, my father and I have well over 1000 cricket titles in our collection.
When he was a boarder from a dairy farm in Allora in Toowoomba from 1951-1954, a Wanderers side including Ken “Slasher” Mackay came to play the school XI and my Dad was Slasher’s host including carrying his personal belongings while he changed into his whites.
The first proper cricket book I ever read as a 10 year old book was Dad’s personally signed copy of “Slasher Opens Up”.
I have never stopped reading cricket books for 44 years and the comfort, solitude and familiarity they provide is a joy and solace.
Your writing has been a key part of that for a long time.
I wasn’t a 10 year old book, just a 10 year old nuffy !
I love Slasher Opens Up!
Golden Boy is the best ‘serious’ cricket book I have and ‘A lot of hard yakka’ by Simon Hughes the most re-read in my house
Two must-reads.
Only got round to Golden Boy at the start of this year but it went straight in to - at the very least - my top five.
I’ve enjoyed dipping in and out of ‘Wounded Tiger’ by Peter Oborne during England’s recent series in Pakistan and that might still remain my favourite cricket book.
Curiously, it has never been harder to get a cricket book published, and it's never been easier. Harder, because publishing is now relentlessly focussed on the bottom line, and if the cricket book isn't about Bradman or Warnie, they doubt it will sell. But easier, too, because advances in technology and online distribution make it easier for micro-publishers and self-publishers to produce books for a small readership.
You mention Jack Pollard: last week I was doing some half-hearted research for something that might turn into a book but probably won't. I found an article by John Arlott on a player I was looking into - written for the Daily Mail in, say, June 1950. Two days later I came across an article on the same player, under Jack Pollard's by-line, in an Australian paper a couple of months later, and it was almost word for word the same. He'd stolen the whole thing, the old bastard. It's said that good artists borrow and great artists steal, and by that yardstick, Pollard was a great artist.
I've just bought the Parker, btw.
Thank you! You may be 16% of the market for it. One of my boys asks me why I write books that no one reads about people no one has heard of, and the only sensible answer I can give is that I write books I would like to read myself, but haven't been written. Parker... well, I'll be interested to see what you think (not much feedback yet from its other five readers).
I get the same questions Max.
I hope your answers are more cogent than mine!
Two years ago I wrote a book celebrating the 125th year of my old cricket club's establishment in 1897. The cost to produce it - around $10,000 - was underwritten by the club, although with sponsorships and sales (almost 100% to club members) it made the club a tidy profit. I know of others who are self-publishing local community histories and, as you say, with modern technology it is possible to economically produce publications for a limited audience.
That is a worthy endeavour, Greg. Although I live in fear of the day I'm coopted to do my own club's history....
I was asked to write the history of Western Suburbs cricket club, and said yes, The second question was "Can you do it in six weeks?" It may not be my very best work.
A rushed job! It took me 2 years to research and write up 125 years but given it was during Covid it gave me something worthwhile to do.
I did make deadline! It was a book and a DVD (remember those?) with old footage and interviews I did with people like Bob Simpson and Alan Davidson. But it could have been so much better.
I’ve no doubt you’ve already been asked, and equally no doubt one day you’ll succumb!
Greg Chappell's biography, written by Adrian McGregor, is still the best cricketers biography I've read or owned. Because the author was a seasoned journalist, and he did the 'interviews' of Greg himself, and so didn't hedge his bets in discussing all of the low parts of his career as well as the highs. The chapters on the underarm and his succession of ducks would never have been so thoroughly examined if Chappell had written it himself. I think it is a masterpiece.
Patrick Keane's biography of Merv Hughes was also terrific, a much better insight into his career and his own controversies than I had imagined it would be.
And until you have read Tim May's magnificent "Mayhem!: The True(ish) Story Of The Australian Cricket Team On Tour" then you are missing out on one of the great cricket books.
I have every Max Walker book from the 1980's. "Caught Marsh Bowled Lillee" by Ian Brayshaw is a favourite, as is his book of his own cricket tales. Frank Tyson's books that relate the Test series of Australia and England in 1974/75 "Test of Nerves" and the West Indies in 1975/76 "The Hapless Hookers" made me want to write reviews of my own cricket club's cricket seasons, which eventually I did for presentation nights over a number of years.
So many cricket books. But not quite to your collection Gideon. Though so many of yours are a part of mine.
Agree about the McGregor and the Keane - not sure about Mayhem!
My father took me to the SCG for Chappell’s last test against Pakistan 40 years ago. I was 8yo and we sat in the Sheridan Stand and saw Chappell bat with Kim Hughes and go past Bradman’s aggregate of 6996.
I then received that book shortly after which was my first cricket book. I still have it - although my wife isn’t sure why such books are kept …
Because of their 'curious persistence', Mark.
What a lovely comments section!
Very few non Aus / UK folks here, so perhaps I will be able to contribute something different.
As a kid, I used to read these monthly Hindi magazines called Cricket Samrat (meaning "Cricket Emperor") - very little editorial / opinion stuff but lots of reporting from around the world. Then came something called Sportstar (a weekly magazine) which went beyond cricket and had lots of editorial / opinion stuff.
The game changed for me when my mother got me this book called Cricket ke Charchit Vivaad (meaning Cricket's Biggest Controversies) from a hawker at a railway station in Central India. It was a terribly written book but it really opened my mind to the history of the game - stuff like Bodyline, Aluminum bat, India at Jamaica in '76.
Been on a book reading spree since then and of course, GH (whose name I have taken the liberty to Indianize - Giddu Hegde) and Frith with their books have been such great teachers for me about things, events, people related to cricket in the past. Cheers to cricket books and cricket book writers. :)
Where do I start. My father had a million cricket books and they are passing through the generations happily. Here are my faves:
1. Mike at Wrykyn - P.G.Wodehouse - absolutely loved the descriptions of the matches as well as the concept of having nets in your own backyard
2. Grimmett on Taking wickets
3. The Art of Cricket - Don Bradman (of course)
4. On Top Down Under - Ray Robinson
5. Wisden 1976 - my first. Used to love looking through the public school averages and the performances of the Professionals in the Lancashire Leagues
6. The Vincibles - Gideon Haigh - there need to be more of these. The precursor to The Grade Cricketer and bloody entertaining.
7. Lillywhite's Cricketer's Annual (got 1874 and 1875 from recollection)
8. Arlott & Trueman on Cricket
9. Warwick Todd Diaries - Tom Gleisner. Just superb.
Plenty of autobiographies etc.. but the above selection are the ones that have made the most impact, at various times, for various reasons. May the genre live on...
Wisden 1976 was my first too!
Tim is correct, the Vincibles was a hugely entertaining account of club cricket. I also have good memories of Marcus Berkmann's "Rain Men", a very funny book about village cricket in England, published nearly 30 years ago.
Rain Men is brilliant
I love when Warwick Todd draws his own name out of a hat to win the car at a charity auction he is supporting. The CEO of the charity suggests it would be improper for him to take the car as the charity’s ambassador. So he solves that problem by immediately withdrawing his support. Brilliant!
Love the thread. Never had cricket books as a child. Have read many but most are post 1991. Interestingly I was not into the history of cricket then as it is not relatable to my family background. But loving cricket as a child the ability to read and find information due to the internet has opened my knowledge. I am more interested in the history of the other cricketing cultures than Australia and England….possibly because I have been considered an outsider who could nevertheless swing a ball as a lefty pacer.
Ed Cowan's In The Firing Line and Simon Hughes's A Lot of Hard Yakka are both favourites of mine. I enjoyed the introspection and accompanying self-doubt the authors were willing to share with the reader about the realities of a first class cricketer's life. Of your writing, Gideon, The Cricket War, The Summer Game and The Mystery Spinner are all thoroughly engaging books I enjoy returning to - thank you.
I loved A lot of Hard Yakka
My cricket library runs to about 250 volumes, none of which will ever be disposed of while I'm still around.
One that stands out is Peter May's Book Of Cricket, first published in 1956. I got this as a Christmas present in 1958, the year I discovered there was more to cricket than just a game you played with your mates in the backyard. Eight-year-old me lapped it up and I can still recall from memory a passage in which May described how, in his first Test in 1951, he was bowled through the gate by South African seamer Geoff Chubb.
Another durable volume is Richie Benaud's Way Of Cricket, released in 1961. My copy was a 12th birthday present in 1962, by which time I was a budding leg-spinner. Benaud wrote of how he cut his run-up down in 1957 and almost immediately became a better bowler. Good advice, although it didn't work for me.
Thank you Gideon, a wonderful article. Love the picture of your library. Four books stand out from my youth. Fred by John Arlott (the paperback version from 1974). The Fast Men by David Frith, which I bought in 1975 with my father from John McKenzie's bookshop in Ewell, which is still there today. Christopher Martin-Jenkins' Assault on the Ashes on the 1974/75 Ashes (as an aspiring fast bowler Dennis Lillee was my hero) and Ray Robinson's On Top Down Under (also 1975). All brilliant books that have stood the test of time. The front covers of all four books are as evocative as the album covers of my favourite LPs from the same era – Bowie, Queen, Stevie Wonder. The albums and the books are still with me today (with a few others).
Excellent choices Nick.
Lambs To The Slaughter, by Graham Yallop. I had long thought Rodney Hogg to be up there with Lillee and Thomson after that golden summer of 41 wickets in a weak team thrashed by England. In those days it was war between Packer's lot and those who chose to stay behind; I stuck with the latter and I needed a hero. Sadly Yallop's book opened my eyes to what Hogg was really like and it wasn't long before AB came along to take over as my No.1.
Graham claimed not to have written a word of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambs_to_the_Slaughter
I've been living a lie!
Both Graham Yallop and Rodney Hogg played in my old competition well after they had retired from first class cricket. Hogg, even in his 50’s, was still fearsomely quick and used to delight in telling incoming batsmen to go and get a helmet. Yallop coached a different club for a year or two but I don’t recall him making a ton of runs.
Erapalli Prasanna's "One more over" and Gavaskar's "Sunny Days" are the ones which have been with me the longest.
Terrific books.
My beloved must rue the day, 2nd of May 1996, when she bought me my first cricket book, a copy of After Stumps Were Drawn ~ The Best of Ray Robinson's cricket writing selected by Jack Pollard 3 years after Ray's passing...... 2616 cricket books later........
Wonderful book, wonderful writer.
“One for the road” by Doug Walters. A combination of cricket and life stories. My dad got it signed by Dougie. He convinced me he’d driven from Melbourne to Sydney to get it signed. I somehow didn’t believe him but he’s never to this day confirmed or denied it.
Love my library that still gets annual contributions each summer...nothing compared to yours GH but the sense is still the same...