Hugh Massingberd
The Legion that Never was ‘Listed
Penguins Stopped Play: Eleven Village Cricketers Take On the World
By Harry Thompson
John Murray 242pp £50 order from our bookshop
Cricket – as my old boss E W Swanton never tired of pointing out to us hacks who toiled away at his encyclopedia of the game – holds up a mirror to character. It is also not a bad metaphor for life. In a moving afterword to this funny and inspiring book by the late Harry Thompson – television producer (Have I Got News For You, Harry Enfield and Chums, They Think It’s All Over, etc), biographer of Richard Ingrams and Peter Cook, and prize-winning novelist (This Thing of Darkness) – his widow Lisa describes how at his burial in Brompton Cemetery someone tossed a cricket ball into the grave.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me
In this month's Bookends, @AdamCSDouglas looks at the curious life of Henry Labouchere: a friend of Bram Stoker, 'loose cannon', and architect of the law that outlawed homosexual activity in Britain.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-gross-indecency