The best cricket books of 2024, from autobiographies to cricket fiction and coffee table essentials
The top rated cricket books of 2024 from the pages of The Cricketer Magazine. Listed are the highest rated books from each issue of The Cricketer in 2024, reviewed and rated by our correspondents.
We said: Vaneisa Baksh doesn't avoid the fact that he put plenty of booze away, that dalliances with star-struck females were part of life on the road, and that at one point he was willing to play cricket in South Africa for a number of reasons, the principal one being money. Simon Barnes
Buy it: £20.68 at WHSmith
We said: This book is about frustrating failure in one field; cricket, and salvation, against the odds in another; aviation - a repurposing that few will have attempted let alone managed. In between the two lies a harrowing tale of medical bad luck but also the steely will to overcome life's slings and arrows, of which Ellcock has endured more than his fair share. Derek Pringle
Buy it: £16.92 at WHSmith
We said: I was hypnotised by the book and wanted to read more. It does get a bit scary and tense towards the end, but it has a brilliant conclusion. If you are a cricket fan you will absolutely love it, but you do not need to know about cricket to enjoy it. Kirsty Macpherson, 10
Buy it: £7.99 at Amazon
We said: Bloom's introduction makes it clear that this is no manifesto. County cricket's faultlines have forever caused a struggle between traditionalists and modernisers. But never have passions about the game's future raged so furiously as franchise cricket spreads disruption and opportunity ever wider, so to find a book as even-handed as this one is quite startling. David Hopps
Buy it: £19.99 at Waterstones
We said: In last year's corresponding piece, David Hopps described the 160th edition as "a book of reflection". Indeed, the intertwining international and domestic schedules that move at breakneck speed deserve a moment of recognition. The 161st Almanack calmly dissects the hectic cricketing year of 2023 which involved the most entertaining Ashes series since 2005 and the World Cup. Rob Yates
Buy it: £60.00 at WHSmith
We said: Her joy of a book demonstrates what a mixed bag they are and have been, from functional adaptations of cowsheds, air-raid shelters and railway carriages through to beauty in iron, timber and glass. Richard Hobson
Buy it: £15.99 at Waterstones
We said: Worrell was repelled by what he saw as the island's insularity. Between the ages of 21 and 28 he was, in his own words, "fighting all sorts of issues both actual and imaginary". In fairness, there was plenty to stand against. He declined to tour India in 1948/49 because he disliked the financial terms. By now he was earning better money as a professional in the Central Lancashire League. Richard Hobson
Buy it: £25.00 at Waterstones
We said: Lord Kitchener's lyrics expressed immigrant identity while rapper Mike Skinner, aka The Streets, recited a Mike Selvey. No book as wide-ranging as this can hope to be complete. Whole tomes have been written already on cricket in Dickens and Wodehouse alone. But Cooper has delivered something witty, wise and surprising that will have readers hitting Google to fi nd out more about people they thought they knew. He is also admirably up to date. Richard Hobson
Buy it: £10.99 at Amazon
We said: Walcott's power became symbolic from the moment he "licked" England at Lord's in 1950. His celebrated back-foot drive inspired CLR James to compare him to the Olympic Apollo, and the poet Edward Kamau Brathwaite to portray him as a sword-arm of liberation. David Woodhouse
Buy it: £9.99 at bookshop.org
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