It's Always Summer Somewhere: A Matter of Life and Cricket - A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK & SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLE

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The moments in his life, bookended with interviews from players, are written about with care, and the love for his family, including his mother, shines throughout. Agree with Kelly Cates - this book is about the three most important things in life: love, music and sport (or more accurately cricket). In many ways, the book and Felix's commentary on The Maccabees' development, maturation and eventual break-up, allowed me to explore my own grief of a band that I grew up with and have never been able to replace. Felix encapsulates what cricket means to so many, and despite it being a sport which can be baffling to a neutral and engrossing to those who know, his words show a love for the game. As a fully fledged part of the Tailenders community, I should probably preface this review with the acknowledgment that I went into reading the book inclined to like it, however the extent to which I did is a credit to White and his writing.

I am a big fan of Test Cricket, and enjoy Tailenders the Podcast (although am not in their target demographic probably! The best book I've read about cricket - although it's not about cricket really - rather an essay on grief and how cricket and music helped the author both and cope and avoid the tragic loss of his mum. Because while this is a book about cricket, it isn’t a book about cricket, it’s about loss, and grief, and learning and living.A strange mix that combines the life story of a rock star with important moments in cricket from the last 30 years. If I had one criticism of this book it would be that it is too short, if I had two it would be that it lacks Sylvain Legwinski. Felix meets them at each signposted moment to find out what was really behind those moments that gave cricket fans everywhere sporting memories that would last forever, sending the book into an exploration of grief, transgenerational displacement and how the people we’ve known and things we’ve loved culminate and take expression in our lives. The way Felix touches on both the comedic and tragic elements of the sport through descriptions of his 'cricket cave' hit close to home at points.

And if you are a cricket fan (especially an England cricket fan) you will be able to relate to so much of what is said - the lows and, indeed, the highs. It’s a manifesto for anyone who has ever stood on the margins, and anyone who wants to make their mark on history.This had a very similar literary style to the Broken Greek by Pete Paphides although it is none the worse for that. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. To sum it up, this is a life story, told through cricket with little bits of family and maccabees interspersed. It’s insightful, and beautifully written, and that well-quoted line from Wandavision really came to mind when reading it.

This is an extraordinary first book … funny, tragic, candid and heartfelt; it would be remarkable if he ever wrote a better one.This troubadour life is only for the fiercest hearts, only for those vessels that can be broken to smithereens and still keep beating out the rhythm for a new song. Last Chance Texaco is the first-ever no-holds-barred account of the life of two-time Grammy Award-winner Rickie Lee Jones, in her own words. It was this devotion that led to the birth of the Bunnymen, to the days when he and Ian McCulloch would muck around with reel-to-reel recordings of song ideas in the back parlour of his parents’ council estate house, and to finding a community – friends, enemies and many in between – with those who would become post-punk royalty from the likes of Dead or Alive, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Teardrop Explodes to name a few. It’s an autobiography beginning when he first starts to discover both cricket and music which weave his childhood years together including the loss of his mother as a teen.

Some very interesting and offbeat interviews with less celebrated cricketers such as Simon Kerrigan and Alan Wells but also Ashley Giles, Alec Stewart and Tuffers. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. His passion for the game is at the fore on the BBC ‘s number one cricket podcast and 5Live show, Tailenders, which he co-presents with Greg James and Jimmy Anderson.

A lovely guy - and this is a beautiful book which describes the consequences of losing a parent painfully well. Felix White’s beautifully, elegantly and passionately written book reminds me why I love cricket so much. A few bits snagged and hooked me: his reflections on 90s and early 00s cricket which I can’t remember, his description of his relationship with Florence Welch. Felix is an utterly compelling author and if like me, you bought this, for a laugh, then you are in for a treat… a book that unpacks the last two decades, the sporting landscape, grief and the human condition.