From Gower to Flintoff, Waugh to Vaughan, Cronje to Pietersen, Paul Nixon has shared a dressing room with some of the most evocative names in international and domestic cricket - and often enraged them on the field of play. The wicketkeeper, known as his sport's most prolific 'sledger', has amassed more than 20 years of stories from his career at the heart of the game and now reveals them in typically outspoken style. From 'Fredalo' to match-fixing, Nixon has experienced some of the most notorious episodes in cricket history, possesses strident opinions on the game and has a track record of success in the English first-class game and the Twenty20 revolution. With an accent on off-the-field anecdotes, Nixon also lays bare the personality that led the Australian legend Steve Waugh to compare him to: 'a mosquito buzzing around in the night, that needs to be swatted but always escapes.'

Shortlisted for the 2017 Cross Sports Autobiography of the Year 'Full of illuminating anecdotes, piercing insights and unsparing self-analysis from the former England batsman' The Cricketer Jonathan Trott was England's rock during one of the most successful periods in the team's history - he scored a century on debut to clinch the Ashes in 2009, and cemented his position as their pivotal batsman up to and beyond the team's ascendancy to the number 1 ranked test team in 2011. Yet shortly after reaching those heights, he started to crumble, and famously left the 2012-13 Ashes tour of Australia suffering from a stress related illness. His story is the story of Team England - it encompasses the life-cycle of a team that started out united by ambition, went on to achieve some of the greatest days in the team's history but then, bodies and minds broken, fell apart amid acrimony. Having seen all of this from the inside, Jonathan's autobiography takes readers to the heart of the England dressing room, and to the heart of what it is to be a professional sportsman. Not only does it provide a unique perspective on a remarkably successful period in English cricket and its subsequent reversal, it also offers a fascinating insight into the rewards and risks faced as a sportsman carrying the hope and expectation of a team and a nation. And it's a salutary tale of the dangers pressure can bring in any walk of life, and the perils of piling unrealistic expecations on yourself.

*Large-format edition* The 154th edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is crammed, as ever, with the best writing in the game. Matthew Engel looks back at 60 years of Test Match Special, Derek Pringle reveals the secrets of ball-tampering, and Gideon Haigh explores the evolution of the six. There are also superb pieces by Rob Smyth, Vic Marks and Tanya Aldred, plus the all the usual reports, reviews, scorecards and statistics - plus the hard-hitting editor's notes by Lawrence Booth. In an age of snap judgments, Wisden's authority and integrity are more important than ever. A perennial bestseller in the UK, yet again this year's edition is truly a "must-have" for every cricket fan. "There can't really be any doubt about the cricket book of the year, any year: it's obviously Wisden" Andrew Baker in the Daily Telegraph @WisdenAlmanack

*Soft-cover edition* The 154th edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is crammed, as ever, with the best writing in the game. Matthew Engel looks back at 60 years of Test Match Special, Derek Pringle reveals the secrets of ball-tampering, and Gideon Haigh explores the evolution of the six. There are also superb pieces by Rob Smyth, Vic Marks and Tanya Aldred, plus the all the usual reports, reviews, scorecards and statistics - plus the hard-hitting editor's notes by Lawrence Booth. In an age of snap judgments, Wisden's authority and integrity are more important than ever. A perennial bestseller in the UK, yet again this year's edition is truly a "must-have" for every cricket fan. "There can't really be any doubt about the cricket book of the year, any year: it's obviously Wisden" Andrew Baker in the Daily Telegraph @WisdenAlmanack

Barbados-born John Holder arrived in England during the 1960s as part of the second wave of West Indian immigrants recruited by London Transport after the war. While working on the Underground he was recommended for a trial at Hampshire. Impressed by his speed and hostility with the ball, they signed him on the spot. For seven years, his career as an opening bowler followed an uneven course, periods of loss of form and confidence punctuated with moments of sheer brilliance, the most noteworthy both coming in his final year at Hampshire in 1972, taking 13-128 in the same match against Gloucestershire and a hat-trick against Kent. A back injury brought his county career to a close. What better way to stay in touch than to become an umpire? A first-class umpire for 27 years, he officiated in 11 Tests and 23 one-day internationals. Former team-mate Andrew Murtagh had unique and unfettered access to his subject. A Test of Character throws an interesting light on the job of an international umpire, with all its pressures, vicissitudes, controversies and prejudices, leavened of course with a fair degree of humour too.

Derbyshire County Cricket Club has had its share of big names and fascinating stories down the years. In Their Own Words recounts the county's history, ever since the Second World War, through the eyes and words of the men who helped create it. Beginning with the county's legendary 98-year-old former groundsman Walter Goodyear, the book is made up of a number of interviews with personalities from every decade since the end of the war. Key characters from across the spectrum of cricket in Derbyshire each give their personal take on team-mates and opponents, trophy successes, fall-outs and life on the cricket circuit. County legends, including Edwin Smith, Harold Rhodes, Brian Jackson, Bob Taylor, Peter Gibbs, Geoff Miller, Wayne Madsen, Graeme Welch and many more talk about their lives and careers inside and outside the game including an array of fascinating anecdotes to make this a club history with a difference.

Glamorgan CCC Miscellany collects together all the vital information you never knew you needed to know about the Dragons. In these pages you will find irresistible anecdotes and the most mindblowing stats and facts. Heard the one about the opposing vicar who scored a hundred, the game when Glamorgan only had five fielders, or the side that were all born in Wales? How about the times when a number 11 was top scorer for the county, or when a batsman was dismissed twice in the space of a minute? Do you know who was keeping wicket when Glamorgan won the 1969 Championship? Who took a wicket with his first-ever ball? Or who was the club's tallest ever player? All these stories and hundreds more appear in a brilliantly researched collection of trivia - essential for any Dragons fan who holds the riches of the club's history close to their heart.

The most famous sports book in the world, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack has been published every year since 1864. Wisden 2012 - the 149th edition - contains coverage of every first-class game in every cricket nation, and reports and scorecards for all Tests and ODIs. Including the eagerly awaited Notes by the Editor, the Cricketers of the Year awards, and some of the finest sports writing of the year - such as the brilliant obituaries - together with trenchant opinion, compelling features and comprehensive records, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack truly is a "must-have" for every cricket fan. A perennial bestseller in the UK. "There can't really be any doubt about the cricket book of the year, any year: it's obviously Wisden". Andrew Baker in the Daily Telegraph

The story of one obsessive fan's unlikely ambition: to bowl just one ball at his childhood hero, Sachin Tendulkar. From the very first time he'd ever watched the 'Little Master' bat, as a 12-year-old boy, Adam Carroll-Smith had been transfixed. He dreamed not just of bowling to Tendulkar, but of actually knocking over his off stump. Just one problem: he was never really much of a cricketer. However, determined not to let such a small detail stand in his way - and eager to settle an old score with a childhood chum - Carroll-Smith earnestly set about achieving the unthinkable during India's 2011 tour of England. A hilarious summer ensued as he attempted to live out his fantasy, fending off the attentions of over-zealous fellow fans, crazed Italian spiritualists and his meddling best friend - not to mention the dozens of blazered officials and luminous-jacketed stewards standing between him and his hero.

Though not one of English cricket's more glamorous or successful counties, Derbyshire have nonetheless had many wonderful players, and their dedicated supporters will enjoy this look back at 100 of the finest. There are undisputed all-time legends such as Mike Hendrick and Bob Taylor, plus some undeniably great but rather more controversial figures such as Dominic Cork. Derbyshire's tradition of superb pace bowlers is much in evidence here, with almost a third of those featured being players in that mould. Featuring player biographies, statistics and illustrations, this book is essential reading for any fan of the club.

"You do well to love cricket," said Lord Harris, "for it is more free from anything sordid, anything dishonourable, than any game in the world." Harris, who captained the first England team to do battle with the Australians in this country, obviously never got his hands on a copy of The Worst of Cricket. If that volume failed to totally convince you that the sport is designed to disturb, dismay and disgruntle in equal measure, then maybe it was because it only scratched the surface. Subtitled 'More Malice and Misfortune in the World's Cruellest Game', The Worst of Cricket 2 completes the job, taking up where its predecessor, one of the best-selling titles in Pitch's popular 'Worst of Sport' series, left off. The book takes another humorous look at the whole catalogue of malevolence, misadventure and madness associated with the sport - corruption, violence, drunkenness, incompetence - on and off the pitch!

Basil D'Oliveira's selection for the tour of his homeland in 1968 set in train a sequence of events that would ultimately lead to South Africa's exile from international sport for over twenty years. Ironically, this enforced separation would draw the cricketing nations of England and South Africa together into a close relationship. A generation of world-class players, lost to Test cricket, found their place in the English counties; as the years in exile became decades some chose to pursue their international ambitions in the colours of their adopted country. At the same time, English players were heading in the opposite direction, risking censure and exile, as members of rebel touring parties. Exiles and Kings examines the modern history of English cricket through the lens of this complex and, at times, uneasy relationship, examining the impact made by a number of players from the African cricketing nations. From the traumas of the late summer of 1968, through the years of exile and rebellion, to the redemption delivered by another South African batsman at The Oval in 2005, Exiles and Kings demonstrates that the African imprint on English cricket is clear and indelible.

The England team has delighted and frustrated in equal measures over the past few decades. This book highlights the most memorable occasions on which the side has triumphed, be it a consummate thrashing of the opposition or an epic against-all-odds comeback from the brink of defeat. Featuring match reports and scorecards from thirty fine victories, including matches from the epic Ashes series of summer 2005, the 2004 romp against New Zealand at Lord's and the Fourth Test in Trinidad in the winter of 1967/68, this volume celebrates the good times in the modern era. With a foreword and commentary from the inimitable Christopher Martin-Jenkins and a wealth of illustration, this book will source of great nostalgia and delight for all England cricket fans.

There have been innumerable biographies of cricketers. Peter Oborne's outstanding biography of Basil D'Oliveira is something else. It brings together sport, politics and race. It is the story of how a black South African defied incredible odds and came to play cricket for England, of how a single man escaped from apartheid and came to fulfil his prodigious sporting potential. It is a story of the conquest of racial prejudice, both in South Africa and in the heart of the English sporting establishment. The story comes to its climax in the so-called D'Oliveira Affair of 1968, when John Vorster, the South African Prime Minister, banned the touring MCC side because of the inclusion of a black man. This episode marked the start of the twenty-year sporting isolation of South Africa that ended only with the collapse of apartheid itself.

'A sequel to The Grade Cricketer? It's like junk time in a second innings - something you just have to be part of.' Gideon Haigh. Is life without cricket worth living? It's a question asked and answered by the Grade Cricketer, as he faces a cricket-free future after a devious plan goes horribly wrong. Hilarious, ridiculous and completely true to life to anyone who's ever spent time in a dressing room, Tea and No Sympathy takes us on a skeweringly funny sporting misadventure through the world of grade cricket and the flawed, damaged and occasionally appalling people who play it, from the creators of the bestselling novel The Grade Cricketer. Praise for The Grade Cricketer: 'The Grade Cricketer is the finest tribute to a sport since Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, and the best cricket book in yonks. It's belly-laughing funny but it's also a hymn to the grand and complex game delivered with a narrative pace and ability I'm afraid most Test players don't have. For anyone who ever dreamed of excelling at a sport but never quite made it but still gave it your life, this is the story. A great read!' Tom Keneally 'The Grade Cricketer has taken us so far inside a district club dressing room that you feel like a locker. Ligaments could not be closer to the bone than some of his observations.' Kerry O'Keeffe 'The Grade Cricketer is strange and, I suspect, brilliant'. Wisden

C.B. Fry was Captain of England at cricket, played football for England and became the joint-holder of the world long-jump record. But he was much more than a sportsman. He won a major scholarship to Oxford, where his friends numbered Max Beerbohm, Hilaire Belloc and F.E. Smith and his nicknames included "Lord Oxford" and "Almighty". He wrote several books, including an autobiography and a novel, while he was one of the most successful journalists of his day. He was a friend of many prominent Labour and Liberal politicians, but flirted with Fascism, meeting Hitler in 1934. He tried out for Hollywood, represented India at the League of Nations, and stood for Parliament three times.

A tour of village cricket grounds in the South East of England, including anecdotes, historical snippets and colour photographs.

John Cleese, Christopher Lee and Michael Parkinson share their passion for cricket with the great broadcaster, Brian Johnston. During the lunch interval on the Saturday of every Test in England, BBC Radio's 'Test Match Special' used to invite a well-known guest into the commentary box for a chat with Brian Johnston about themselves and their passion for cricket. Some turned out to be able cricketers, but they all had stories to tell about matches they had seen and cricketers they had met. Barry Johnston - Brian Johnston's son - has selected five chats from the series 'A View from the Boundary', beginning in 1980 with the playwright Ben Travers, and his vivid recollections of W.G. Grace and other characters from the golden age of cricket. He is followed by Michael Charlton, the political broadcaster and former cricket commentator, who covered the great Australia v West Indies tied Test in 1960, and John Cleese, a lifelong Somerset supporter, who tells some funny stories about 'Monty Python' and 'Fawlty Towers'. Hollywood film star Sir Christopher Lee recalls watching the legendary Jack Hobbs and Don Bradman, and Sir Michael Parkinson talks about opening the batting at Barnsley with Dickie Bird and how he nearly played for Hampshire. Publisher's note: This recording was taken from part of the cassette release of 'A View from the Boundary'. 1 CD. 1 hr 15 mins approx.

He's the hottest talent in the cricketing world today. Hailed as the next Ian Botham, Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff is a truly phenomenal cricketer. Adored by the fans and an inspiration to his team-mates, it is said that when Freddie's playing, the bar staff get a break as the punters leave the bars to watch him in action. His reputation as a gutsy and hard-working player is rapidly growing and he is seen by many as the man responsible for galvanising the England team into a force to be reckoned with. In this affectionate and revealing portrait, acclaimed biographers Stafford Hildred and Tim Ewbank uncover the man behind this invincible cricketer to find out exactly what makes him tick.

C.B. Fry was Captain of England at cricket, played soccer for England, and became the joint-holder of the world long-jump record. But he was much more than a sportsman. He won a major scholarship to Oxford, where his friends numbered Max Beerbohm, Hilaire Belloc, and F.E. Smith. He wrote several books, including an autobiography and a novel, and he was one of the most successful journalists of his day. He was a friend of many prominent Labour and Liberal politicians, but flirted with Fascism, meeting Hitler in 1934. He tried out for Hollywood, represented India at the League of Nations, and stood for Parliament three times.

The tours include Taverners jaunts to the Balearics, an Aborigine team visiting England in 1868, Australia trying to win in India, Sydney Barnes in South Africa, Wally Hammond Down Under and more. The lively conversational style which made Mike Harfield's previous book, Not Dark Yet, so popular appears again, along with a cornucopia of cricket. Most of the time it is the cricket which lives in the memory; occasionally contemporary events intervene. Always the journey is entertaining.