october-november 2017 books…

SF Barnes – Master Bowler (Leslie Duckworth): This is the second time I’ve read this book (published in 1967) – I bought it in a jumble sale several years ago. Syd Barnes, professional cricketer, was born in Smethwick in 1873 (just a few miles from where I was brought up in Handsworth) and is regarded as one of the greatest ever bowlers. In my youth, I think one of the things that attracted me to following his cricket career was the fact that he had been a leg-spin bowler – or so I thought (I was a leg-spinner too, hence my interest). I subsequently discovered that although, yes, he bowled leg-breaks… he also bowled off-breaks, could swing the ball both ways and actually varied his pace from medium to fast-medium (so, not like my gentle slow stuff at all!). Despite his very long career as a top class player – he played his last competitive game aged 67(!) – he only spent some two seasons in first class cricket (for Warwickshire and Lancashire). He preferred to make his living playing league and minor counties cricket. He did however also play 27 Test Matches for England between 1901 and 1914, taking 189 wickets at a staggering 16.43 runs each (including a world series record of 49 wickets against South Africa in his final Test series in 1913-14). In league and club cricket, between 1895 and 1940, he took a mere 4,069 wickets at an incredible 6.08 runs each! Some people accused him of being “grim and unresponsive” but Duckworth’s book makes it very clear that, despite his little idiosyncrasies, he was well-liked by his fellow players and the public alike. A fascinating book (if you’re a cricket-lover!).
Eating Pomegranates (Sarah Gabriel): This is a remarkable book (first published in 2009 and a chance purchase at Bristol’s beloved Last Bookshop). Sarah Gabriel was a teenager when her mother died from ovarian cancer (aged just 42). When Gabriel was 44, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and learned that she had inherited a rare and deadly genetic mutation (BRCA1 gene – responsible for the death of her mother and countless female ancestors). Within a year, Gabriel had lost her breasts, her ovaries, her hair and was fighting for her life… and fighting for a way to prevent her two daughters, aged five and three, from growing up motherless. The book is a memoir of mothers, daughters and genes. It’s a beautiful, but often raw and angry book. Sometimes resentful (“why me?”); sometimes making harsh comments about acquaintances and family members… and about people’s insensitive comments; missing her own mother (and her mother’s presence during Gabriel’s illness); needing to speak about her mother and to understand the final days of her mother’s illness. But, crucially, it’s an honest, brave and frank book. As far as I know, Gabriel is still alive (very good news!). Beautifully written. Heartrending. As a mere male, I felt almost privileged to read it. Certainly one of the most powerful books I’ve read all year.  
Things The Grandchildren Should Know (Mark Oliver Everett): Another book picked up at the Last Bookshop. I’m not ‘into’ books by musicians but, as you know, I do like a good autobiography. Well, sadly, this isn’t a particularly good autobiography. I’m not a huge Eels music fan, but I do like some of Everett’s work. The book (published in 2008) tells of his difficult home life; how he survived the deaths of his entire family: and how he managed to make something of his life. Frankly, I found it all a bit pretentious – as an example, the penultimate chapter contains the following somewhat pathetic sentence: “Just living another day has always felt like some sort of success to me”… well, good for you! Actually, one of the reasons I bought the book in the first place was this description inside the back cover: “Mark Oliver Everett is an ordained minister and alternative rock star”… I didn’t know he was an ordained minister and so was intrigued how this had come about. Strangely, although the book contains various comments about not believing in God, there’s absolutely nothing about his life as a minister!
The Greatcoat (Helen Dunmore): This is a ghost story (which, somewhat ironically, I finished on Halloween!)(it also happened to be published by Hammer!), set in 1952, about a young woman – recently married to a country GP – who one night, when her husband is on call, is startled by the face of a young RAF pilot at the window. There used to be a near-by airfield used in the war… where a maimed Lancaster bomber crashed on landing, killing all on board… I won’t bother to go into details, but you get the general idea! Having previously read one of Dunmore’s books (and enjoyed it), I was intrigued at the prospect of reading another. I was sadly disappointed.
Cardus On Cricket (Neville Cardus): Sorry, another cricket book! This book was first published in 1949 (Rupert Hart-Davis’s introduction was written a month before my birth!) – my copy was published in 1951. It’s a compilation of Cardus’s writings from between 1922 and 1937 – indeed, a few from “Days In The Sun” and “The Summer Game”, which I’ve recently read (and reviewed). Hart-Davis was perhaps correct in saying that Cardus’s early pieces seemed to him “flowery and overwritten” but, nevertheless, I find them both wonderfully evocative and illuminating. I particularly liked his piece about Don Bradman, written in 1930 (when Bradman was 22): “And now that a Bradman has come to us, capable of 300 runs in a single day of a Test match, some of us are calling him a Lindrum of cricket. It is a hard world to please. Perhaps by making a duck some day, Bradman will oblige those of his critics who believe with Lord Bacon that there should always be some strangeness, something unexpected, mingled with art and beauty”. Of course (as all cricket-lovers will know), Bradman DID score a duck in his final Test match innings, at the Oval in 1948 -  if he’d scored a mere 4 runs in that innings, he would have finished with Test average of over 100 runs per innings (as it was, he finished on 99.94). Another very enjoyable read.