Jon Hotten

Bat, Ball and Field is a wonderful foray into the history and culture of cricket. ‘Hotten is not just good, he is one of the best’ Cricketer Chronicling the evolution of the sport since its earliest years, highlighting transcendent moments as well as tragedies, Jon Hotten lifts the seemingly impregnable veil from the Laws, batting strokes, types of bowling and the sometimes absurd names given to where fielders stand, allowing anyone a pathway into enjoying the sport, and an introductory immersion into its long history. This book is divided into the three parts that make up the fundamental elements of bat, ball and field. Their harmony produces cricket’s unique environment; their centuries’ long conflict provides its innovation, adaptability and vast psychological hinterland. These sections unite to map out in a completely original way the story of the sport that began as a country pursuit and is now followed by billions across the world.

Cricket is a strange game. It is a team sport that is almost entirely dependent on individual performance. Its combination of time, opportunity and the constant threat of disaster can drive its participants to despair. To survive a single delivery propelled at almost 100 miles an hour takes the body and brain to the edges of their capabilities, yet its abiding image is of the gentle village green, and the glorious absurdities of the amateur game.In The Meaning of Cricket , Jon Hotten attempts to understand this fascinating, frustrating and complex sport. Blending legendary players, from Vivian Richards to Mark Ramprakash, Kevin Pietersen to Ricky Ponting, with his own cricketing story, he explores the funny, moving and melancholic impact the game can have on an individual life.

A hilarious and somewhat disturbing look at the weird sport of bodybuilding, Muscle is a journey through a land of giants — men who worship at the altar of Arnie.Bodybuilding is the wildest, weirdest sport in the world, but it is more than just a sport; it’s a whole way of life for the supermen who scale its Olympian heights. In Muscle , John Hotten fights his own unpromising genetics to hitch up with the bodybuilding circus, from London to Las Vegas, Amsterdam to Arnie’s place. As his forbidding subjects open up, confiding their fears and ambitions, he discovers a story of unregulated excess, chemical mayhem and hard-won glory in the pursuit of the perfect pec.Beginning with the shocking death of Andreas Munzer, a fallen hero with a 58-inch chest and 21-inch arms, and ending with the glitz and drama of the Mr Olympia competition, Muscle hangs out at the gyms and the shows, going head to head with the stars and legends — Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler and the Terminator himself — as well as the casualties, gym rats and iron junkies!Taking beef as its motif, Muscle is a book for everyone who’s ever looked in the mirror and wanted more.

"The Years of the Locust" is a true story of intrigue, paranoia, murder and money set in the shimmering cities of America's South in the 1990s. It's the story of two men who never should have met, and when they did, one killed the other. There are walk-on parts for Don King, George Foreman, the FBI and a fallen NFL hero, yet it's the two central characters - sociopathic door-to-door-sales-king-turned-boxing-promoter Rick 'Elvis' Parker and his loyal, naive and ultimately incorruptible fighter Tim Anderson - that make this story extraordinary and unforgettable. It would be impossible to invent a man like Rick Parker, a freakishly fat ginger-haired giant who modelled his personal style on Elvis Presley and wanted to become the next Don King. Don himself told Rick how to do it - find a white man who could become the heavyweight champion of the world. Then Rick met Tim Anderson, a handsome, funny former baseball pro - was he the fighter to take Parker all the way? Rick left a trail of fixed fights and violent mayhem all across the South, but his dream stayed out of reach. By the end of his reign of terror Tim would be broke, poisoned and facing the hardest choice of his life. And now Tim is doing life without parole in a state prison, and Rick - well, Rick's dead. By juxtaposing the lives of these two extraordinary men, "The Years of the Locust" turns a remarkable, riotous true-crime story into a profound examination of chance, choices and remorse - one that's scary, sad and blackly, bleakly funny.

Los Angeles, 1988. In a summer of hedonism, everyone wants their share.On Sunset Strip, undiscovered bands dream of emulating their Mötley Crüe, Van Halen, Poison and all the other chancers who got lucky... Above them in the canyons, the city’s privileged youth already live like rock stars. Drifting between these separate worlds is a journalist on the trail of stories that grow darker by the a rock star wannabe who may or may not be who he says he is, a guitar player who will do anything to succeed, crossing the line between reality and fantasy.Then comes beautiful Iris, distant Brenna, ambivalent Blair, Lana the singer - taking their chances, losing their way, doing whatever it takes…Set in the glory days when the music business was a vast and amoral empire where stardom seemed arbitrary and sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll were the lifestyle of choice, My Life and the Beautiful Music blurs memoir, myth and reality to recreate the last, lost era of a now-vanished world.

Unlicensed fighting is the raw flipside of boxing. A few men make what they call easy money, but for many the unlicensed game becomes a nightmare of pain and fear. This book shares the lives and times of these men, from John Barnwell, a veteran of 30 years of brutal contests around the world, to the undefeated Billy Heaney, the street-fighting champion called "The Galway Bull."

From unlikely beginnings, when heavy-metal-crazed Danish teenager Lars Ulrich advertized for like-minded longhairs to form a speed metal band, to worldwide sales of 20 million albums, the Metallica story is a remarkable one.Spearheading the thrash explosion, Metallica traveled from a Los Angeles garage to the biggest stadiums in the world, overcoming genuine tragedy along the way. Their last tour was seen by more than 4 million people; and the Metallica album has been in the charts for over two years.

Offered with an exclusive compilation CD containing 10 genre-defining tracks, each title in the series of six, reflecting retail's most popular categories, looks at the history of the music and its greatest performers, provides a who's who, reviews the classic albums and catelogues the master works currently available.

Bat, Ball and Fieldis a wonderful foray into the history and culture of cricket. ‘Hotten is not just good, he is one of the best’ Cricketer Chronicling the evolution of the sport since its earliest years, highlighting transcendent moments as well as tragedies, Jon Hotten lifts the seemingly impregnable veil from the Laws, batting strokes, types of bowling and the sometimes absurd names given to where fielders stand, allowing anyone a pathway into enjoying the sport, and an introductory immersion into its long history. This book is divided into the three parts that make up the fundamental elements of bat, ball and field. Their harmony produces cricket’s unique environment; their centuries’ long conflict provides its innovation, adaptability and vast psychological hinterland. These sections unite to map out in a completely original way the story of the sport that began as a country pursuit and is now followed by billions across the world.

Bat, Ball and Field : The Elements of Cricket

When the first lockdown came, finding himself without cricket for the first time in his life, Geoffrey Boycott sat down and began to write a retrospective warts-and-all diary of each of his Test match appearances. It is illuminating and unsparing, characterized by Boycott’s astonishing memory, famous forthrightness and unvarnished, sometimes lacerating, honesty.That 100,000 word document forms the basis for Being Geoffrey Boycott, a device that takes the listener inside Geoffrey’s head and back through cricket history, presenting a unique portrait of the internal and external forces that compelled him from a pit village in Yorkshire to the pinnacle of the world game.Now 81 and still one of the most recognizable cricketers England has ever produced, Boycott has teamed up with award-winning author Jon Hotten in this catalogue of his tumultuous time with the national side.Dropped for scoring a slow double hundred, making himself unavailable to play for England for several years, captain for eight seasons of a group of strong, stroppy and extremely talented players at Yorkshire, bringing up his hundredth hundred at Headingley against the Old Enemy, seeing David Gower and Ian Botham emerge as future greats, playing under Mike Brearley in the 1981 Ashes, in this enlightening book Boycott reveals a host of never-before-heard details regarding his peers and his playing days.