R. S. Stanier

Brilliant, incisive piece of cricket writing, that goes beyond the norm, 14 Jan 2013

Gideon Haigh is probably the best writer on cricket in the world today.
Here he takes Shane Warne as his subject, and analyses him and uses Warne as a prism to assess the state of cricket, the state of masculinity and in fact the Australian nation himself.
This isn't through any major new knowledge or interviews, simply through sifting through the evidence with his customary intelligence, and opening it up to a wider perspective.
In different sections, he takes Warne the leg spinner, Warne the Test cricketer, Warne and 'cheating' (the minor betting information offence, for which he feels Warne was harshly treated, and the more foolish issue of diuretics to return to fitness,… Read more

Top quality ball, 7 Jan 2013

This ball is a very good ball. I bought it for my youth group.
In fact, it was such a good ball that unfortunately it has been stolen.
But that's not the ball's fault.

Original approach to potentially well-worn subject, 7 Jan 2013

Churchill and Hitler both have billions of words written about them. What is different about this?
Its originality lies in Peter John's taking as a focus the words they wrote about each other.
Hitler portrayed Churchill as a drunkard, for example. There's tons more detail, but that's what makes this addition to the historiography worth while.
This can still be read as a double-biography as well, but that's its USP.