The Library
Members may, without charge, borrow books from the Society's comprehensive cricket library.
The library is open before all London meetings and, from its 50 year existence, has built up a wide range of books covering all aspects of cricket literature.
Most standard cricket books are held including Wisden,
The Cricketer, a large collection of county yearbooks, overseas annuals, club histories as well as a full range of histories, biographies and tour books.
Postal requests for information from library sources are always welcomed.
Bibliography of Cricket
The Library Association published a Bibliography of Cricket on behalf of the Society in 1977.
A revised and enlarged edition, containing over 10,000 entries on every aspect of cricket at home and abroad, was
published in 1984.
Volume II of the bibliography was published in 1991.
Video Library
Cricket videos are available on loan to members by post, covering both current and historic.
The News Bulletin
Published eight times a year with information about past, present and future activities, together with
interesting and original statistical research, list of new members and a chance to advertise items for sale.
The News Bulletin is sent to all members.
The Journal
The critically acclaimed 72-page Journal of The Cricket Society is published twice a year and sent to all members.
It includes original articles by writers both familiar and new on many aspects of cricket past and present.
The following are a selection of articles previously printed in The Journal of The Cricket Society.
Click on the title to view it.
Cricket Society Book of the Year 2007/8
LEGEND LOHMANN BEATS MAJOR AND WARNE TO WIN CRICKET SOCIETY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD
Surrey scorer and cricket author Keith Booth's biography of one of cricket history's great bowlers of the Victorian age - George Lohmann - has pipped ex-Prime Minister John Major's book about early cricket and Simon Wilde's biography of controversial Australian star Shane Warne to win the Cricket Society's prestigious annual book award.
Cricket Society Chairman Bill Allen announced the winning book and author at a special celebratory Cricket Society awards evening at the Royal Overseas League on 15 April, with available short-listed authors and their publishers present and speaking. The judges praised Booth's book as a lovingly told and scholarly account of one of cricket's greats. A thrilled Randall Northam of SportsBooks declared Lohmann to be the Bradman of bowling and the Flintoff of his day.
The other short listed books were
FIVE FIVE FIVE - Holmes & Sutcliffe In 1932 - Stephen Chalke Fairfield Books
Still perhaps cricket's most famous partnership is covered by the estimable Stephen Chalke and the slim volume is notable for the attention to detail and juxtaposition of the Leyton ground where the record was made and its fate today. The answer to the mystery of the missing no-ball that cemented the record, however, still eludes us.
GROVEL - The Story and Legacy of the Summer of 1976 - David Tossell Know The Score Books
That long hot English drought of a summer provides us with an in-depth look at the season when West Indies unleashed their all-pace attack on England. Fired by Tony Greig's unfortunate comment, the cricket served as a statement of pride as well as the full flowering of Caribbean supremacy on the cricket field. Tony Greig's rueful foreword complements the book's detailed story.
MORE THAN A GAME - The Story of Cricket's Early Years - John Major Harper Press
A remarkable debut cricket book from a man known for his non-sporting achievements in life. The task of covering cricket's dawning from its earliest fragments to the end of the nineteenth century obviously did not daunt a man who had been through the Maastricht Treaty. Along the way old myths are examined and sometimes discarded and reputations carefully examined. Likely to join other, earlier books as a starting-point for future historians.
TOM CARTWRIGHT - The Flame Still Burns - Stephen Chalke Fairfield Books
The life and times of a genuine craftsman whose commitment and skill is celebrated in testimony by an extraordinary range of cricketers. Expertly told by Stephen Chalke, this book must serve as an epitaph as its subject so unhappily passed away shortly after the book's completion. A worthy tribute to a cricketer who never gave less than his best.
SHANE WARNE - Portrait of a Flawed Genius - Simon Wilde John Murray
An unauthorised biography which gives the author less insight from the subject but more freedom to paint the picture with all the available information. A career full of controversy as well as the highest skills is treated in a serious manner by a serious author as opposed to the more tabloid approach of previous attempts.
Other books nominated were
MY DEAR MICHAEL - Neville Cardus/Bob Hilton (Ed) Lancashire CCC Library
Fragments of a life perhaps, with Neville Cardus's letters to his friend Michael Kennedy fleshed out with copious notes, photographs and Cardus's own writings on music and cricket generally culled from newspapers of the mid-century.
ALLAN WATKINS - Douglas Miller ACS Publications
Douglas Miller's enquiring mind fills a gap in English cricket recent history with a short biography of an underrated all-rounder. Glamorgan's first centurion in Test cricket and later, a successful and respected coach, is brought back from the shadows of cricket history to a deserved place in the sun.
WASTED? - Paul Smith Know The Score Books
Not so much warts and all but warts and more warts in this candid autobiography. Highlights and low-life rub shoulders until a surprising twist brings about the prospect of redemption. Uncomfortable reading in places but a story that needed to be told.
MY TURN TO SPIN - Shaun Udal with Pat Symes Know The Score Books
The story of a career that promised much but seemed to be doomed to end in disappointment, only to be redeemed by a late and successful call up to Test cricket which, equally mysteriously, then ended abruptly. The tale is not without personal family problems but with his signing for Middlesex, there may yet be another twist in the career of this hard-working cricketer.
FINALLY A FACE - A Memoir of Reginald Wood - Philip Paine Mischief Makers
Reginald Wood was one of those cricketers whose international career came about as a result of being in the right place at the right time, viz, in a foreign country when England were touring, much like Tony Pigott, Ken Palmer and Harry Lee. Philip Paine's book, however, had its genesis in the discovery of the only known photograph of Wood. When it was found, the author 'Had to write a book,' and this is the result.
LALA AMARNATH - Life and Times - Rajender Amarnath Sportsbooks Ltd.
The son of one of India's most famous cricketers gives another side to the traditional view of the stormy life and times of Lala Amarnath. Indian cricket politics play a large part in the tale but the book is remarkably free from score-settling and concentrates of the facts of the matter. Proof that the history of cricket can be as absorbing as current events.
SUPERCAT - The Authorised Biography of Clive Lloyd Fairfield Books Simon Lister
A fresh approach to biography marks this debut offering from Simon Lister who tells the story of one of cricket's most respected figures in conversations with not only Clive Lloyd himself but also, many of his contemporaries and predecessors. Delving deeper than merely exploits on the field, this gives a more complete picture of a giant of West Indies and world cricket.
FRENCH AND SPANISH CRICKET - Michael Kelleher Exposure Publishing
Anyone who has ever holidayed in Europe, enjoying the lifestyle but pining for a snatch of World Service or Long-Wave commentary will feel a sense of kinship with this picaresque adventure. Not so much a book about cricket more a book about the way that cricket infiltrates even the most of cosmopolitan of lives.
