The Rules of Backyard Cricket

Author: Jock Serong
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1922253790
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
It starts in a suburban backyard with Darren Keefe and his older brother, sons of a fierce and gutsy single mother. The endless glow of summer, the bottomless fury of contest. All the love and hatred in two small bodies poured into the rules of a made-up game. Darren has two big talents: cricket and trouble. No surprise that he becomes an Australian sporting star of the bad-boy variety—one of those men who’s always got away with things and just keeps getting. Until the day we meet him, middle aged, in the boot of a car. Gagged, cable-tied, a bullet in his knee. Everything pointing towards a shallow grave. The Rules of Backyard Cricket is a novel of suspense in the tradition of Peter Temple’s Truth. With glorious writing harnessed to a gripping narrative, it observes celebrity, masculinity—humanity—with clear-eyed lyricism and exhilarating narrative drive. Jock Serong’s first novel, Quota, won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. The Rules of Backyard Cricket was shortlisted for the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Award for Fiction, and was a finalist in the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards and the 2017 Indie Book Awards. On the Java Ridge won the Colin Roderick Award and the international Staunch Book Prize in 2018. Jock lives with his family on Victoria’s far west coast. ‘The Rules of Backyard Cricket by Jock Serong, while classified as ‘crime’, is a compelling literary novel dissecting toxic sporting culture and its fallout.’ Paddy O’Reilly, Australian Book Review, 2016 Books of the Year ‘The Rules of Backyard Cricket got the thumbs up from everyone.’ Favourite Fiction for 2016, Avenue Bookstore ‘My favourite reading experience of the year (and I don’t even like cricket).’ Heather Taylor Johnson, Sydney Morning Herald’s Year in Reading ‘Blow me down if I didn’t hang on every word.’ Clare Wright, Best Books of 2016, Australian ‘One of the great novels written about sport...Delicious. It’s the top read of the summer.’ Stuff NZ ‘A deeply interesting novel about sibling rivalry, family, masculinity, and the game of cricket...Serong is a talented storyteller, and he brings this unusual world to life.’ Booklist ‘Merges my childhood dreamscape of hot days and sporting ambition with a page-turning thriller set within the rot of professional sport. Beautifully Melbourne. Get on it!’ Tony Wilson ‘Readers who have fallen in love with Australian mysteries, thrillers and crime novels have a whole world to discover with fantastic authors bringing the southern hemisphere to life...As in the UK, cricket is a national passion in Australia and Jock Serong delves into the murky world of professional sportsmen.’ Jane Harper, Daily Mail

Preservation

Author: Jock Serong
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1925774031
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Book Description
Preservation, based on the true story of the wreck of the Sydney Cove, sees master storyteller Jock Serong turn his talents to historical narrative.

The Burning Island

Author: Jock Serong
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1922330086
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
A father’s obsession, a daughter's quest

On the Java Ridge

Author: Jock Serong
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1925498395
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
• A new format of this cracking literary thriller with a stunning new cover • On the Java Ridge sold 8k in original formats • Shortlisted for the 2018 Indie Awards • Jock's first novel Quota won the Ned Kelly First Novel Award; His second novel, The Rules of Backyard Cricket was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and is nominated for the prestigious US Edgar Prize (2018) • In this widely praised novel, Serong tells the gripping story of a group of Australian surfers on a luxury charter boat who witness the sinking of a boatload of refugees off the coast of Indonesia • `You might want to clear the decks before you start Jock Serong's third thriller, because the odds are you won't be able to put it down.' Adelaide Advertiser • Just in time for Father's Day • Jock Serong lives in Port Fairy, Victoria

The Tented Field

Author: Tom Melville
Publisher: Popular Press
ISBN: 9780879727703
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
Presents an analytical explanation of why cricket failed as an American sporting institution. Devotes much attention to the rise of organized American sports immediately before and after the Civil War and interprets this phenomenon in the context of both its premodern American history as well as its development up to the First World War. The geographical focus is on the larger urban areas of the Atlantic seaboard, but other urban and rural areas are also discussed. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Knockabout Cricket

Author: Neridah McMullin
Publisher: One Day Hill Pty Limited
ISBN: 9780992439736
Category : Children's stories
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Book Description
In the 1860s the game of cricket was hugely popular and often played between neighbouring pastoral stations in Western Victoria. One day at Pine Hills station, a tall aboriginal boy steps out from the phalaris grass and joins in a game of cricket. He shows them all how to play the game with skill, grace and flair. His name was Unaarramin or Johhny Mullagh from Mullagh Station. Touring England, playing for the Melbourne Cricket Club and for his local club the Harrow Cricket Club Johnny Mullaghs achievements in batting and bowling are comparable to the best the game has ever seen. Fifteen years before Test Cricket began, Johnny Mullagh became a true sporting legend, his feats making him one of Australia's first international cricket stars. A cricketing hero to a white audience, he was also a man caught between two worlds, facing racism and discrimination his entire life. Knockabout Cricket is a fictional account of how Johnny Mullagh may have come to play cricket, told from the perspective of a squatters son. This picture book is supported by historical facts about Knockabout Cricket and Johnnys life from historical documents and newspaper clippings.

Steve Smith's Men

Author: Geoff Lemon
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1743586159
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
He was top of the world, with numbers bettered only by Don Bradman – then captain Steve Smith led his Australian team into a cheating scandal that stunned cricket. Media exploded and million-dollar contracts were torn up. Australia’s prime minister expressed the public anger and disappointment: ‘Our cricketers are role models, and cricket is synonymous with fair play.’ But there was more to the story than the actions of a few young men. A tangle of personality, politics and culture had led them to this point. Geoff Lemon witnessed that story from commentary boxes and press conferences, and was there in South Africa for its final act. This is a frank, fearless and often humorous account of the path from Ashes high to Cape Town low, from someone who watched it all unfold.

Quota

Author: Jock Serong
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1925355055
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
HIS HONOUR: Mr Jardim, withdraw that comment immediately. MR JARDIM: Your Honour, I'm not withdrawing it because it's got nothing to do with the merits of this case, just as your small-minded treatment of my client has got nothing to do with the merits of the case. I mean, could you have cocked this thing up any worse? Bloody helpless kid and you know she's back out on the street now. You're known throughout the state as a heartless old prick and a drunk, and seeing I've gone this far, your daughter-in-law's appointment to the court is widely viewed as a grubby political payoff. Today's pretty much the lowest I've seen you stoop but it's been a rich field of excrem— HIS HONOUR: Senior, will you have Mr Jardim removed? Charlie Jardim has just trashed his legal career in a spectacular courtroom meltdown, and his girlfriend has finally left him. So when a charitable colleague slings him a prosecution brief that will take him to the remote coastal town of Dauphin, Charlie reluctantly agrees that the sea air might be good for him. The case is a murder. The victim was involved in the illegal abalone trade and the even more illegal drug trade. And the witnesses aren't talking. And as Dauphin closes ranks around him, Charlie is about to find his interest in the law powerfully reignited.

Here and Now

Author: Paul Auster
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143124919
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
“[A] civilized discourse between two cultivated and sophisticated men. . . . It’s a pleasure to be in their company.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. After a meeting at an Australian literary festival brought them together in 2008, novelists Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee began exchanging letters on a regular basis with the hope they might “strike sparks off each other." Here and Now is the result: a three-year epistolary dialogue that touches on nearly every subject, from sports to fatherhood, literature to film, philosophy to politics, from the financial crisis to art, death, eroticism, marriage, friendship, and love. Their high-spirited and luminous correspondence offers an intimate and often amusing portrait of these two men as they explore the complexities of the here and now and reveal their pleasure in each other’s friendship on every page.

Eleven Bats

Author: Anthony 'Harry' Moffitt
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1761060309
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Book Description
Alongside the SAS, Harry's other lifetime love is cricket. An improvised game of cricket was often the circuit-breaker Harry and his team needed after the tension of operations. He began a tradition of organising matches wherever he was sent, whether it was in the mountains of East Timor with a fugitive rebel leader, or on the dusty streets of Baghdad, or in exposed Forward Operating Bases in the hills of Afghanistan. Soldiers, locals and even visiting politicians played in these spontaneous yet often bridge-building games. As part of the tradition, Harry also started to take a cricket bat with him on operational tours, eleven of them in total. They'd often go outside the wire with him and end up signed by those he met or fought alongside. These eleven bats form the basis for Harry's extraordinary memoir. It's a book about combat, and what it takes to serve in one of the world's most elite formations. It's a book about the toll that war takes on soldiers and their loved ones. And it's a book about the healing power of cricket, and how a game can break down borders in even the most desperate of circumstances.