may 2018 books...

Where The Streams Come From (Chris Goan): Although we’ve never met, I regard poet Chris Goan as a good friend. We’ve collaborated together (alongside Ian Adams and Si Smith – I merely provided some photographs) on a book for Proost and our paths have also crossed in connection with the “World Turned Upside Down” exhibition in Leeds last year. He lives in Dunoon, Scotland, and is a member of the Aoradh community. I love his poetry and really enjoyed this collection – which focuses on nature, spirituality, love, compassion (and a whole range of other things, including CalMac ferries!). He certainly has a way with words and I very much liked the fact that most of his poems were accompanied by brief background notes putting his words into context. One of those special books that I’ll be dipping into again and again over the coming months/years.
Autobiography (Neville Cardus): I bought this 1947 first edition for 50p(!) at the Taunton Cricket Ground secondhand bookshop. Cardus (1888-1975) came from an impoverished family background and was largely self-taught (he reckoned he was ‘unteachable’ at school, but spent countless hours in the local library reading). Somewhat bizarrely, in 1919, he found himself as the cricket correspondent of the esteemed Manchester Guardian… and subsequently, in 1927, also its chief music critic (his main passion)(this book contains some wonderful descriptions of his conversations with Thomas Beecham). My own knowledge of Cardus is as a cricket writer… and I’ve loved his eloquent, flowery descriptions and his articulate, romantic fervour for his subject (and his humour). He wrote this autobiography when he was 52 (he wrote three others!) and, yes, his stuff is ‘of an age’ and, on occasions, he comes across as something of an egoist… but, nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
44 Scotland Street (Alexander McCall Smith): I like McCall Smith’s stuff (No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency). This is a little different – about characters and life in Edinburgh – which he started writing as a daily serial for ‘The Scotsman’. The storylines are relatively straightforward and uncomplicated, and all the characters readily identified as ‘types’ we’ve all met. Yes, it might be light reading, but thoroughly entertaining, enjoyable (and pretty gentle) light reading!
English Cricket (Christopher Brookes): A fascinating book, published in 1978 (just after Kerry Packer launched his ‘cricketing circus’), tracing the game’s evolution over the past 500 years. In the 18^th century, the game was essentially one played and organised by the aristocracy and their upper-class friends. By the late 19^th century, it had developed into a game which made particular distinctions between ‘amateurs’ and ‘professionals’ (with amateurs and professionals having their separate dressing rooms and, sometimes, even entering the field of play by a separate gate!). Ridiculously, this distinction lasted until 1962 - and I can remember the last Gentlemen v Players (ie. amateurs versus professionals) match at Lord’s taking place that year. Brookes talks about how the game has had to become a business in order to attract finance and how, for the counties, the limited over formats probably represented the ‘way forward’ in order for the game to survive (he quotes a newspaper report from 1971, which noted that the average daily attendance at county championship matches in 1970 had been just 581!). The book is a reminder that cricket has faced many upheavals over its development (long before Packer, for example, in 1846, William Clarke’s All-England XI of ‘wandering professionals’ threatened the very future of the game) and this will no doubt continue to be the case – despite my own selfish moaning about the current demise of the County Championship!
Freeze Frame (Peter May): This is an “Enzo Macleod Investigation” (and, true to form, I later discovered that this was book four of a series of seven!). Scott Enzo Macleod is a forensics expert who has taken on a bet to solve seven ‘cold cases’. This investigation is set on a small island off the coast of Brittany and relates to the notorious, unsolved killing of a tropical disease specialist and entomologist in his study some 20 years earlier. A very clever book (sometimes just a little too clever and fanciful perhaps?) which I read in a day and a half. Dark and powerful. This was only my second Peter May book, but there will definitely be more!