Dickie Bird


Book Description

Dickie Bird's retirement was an international event shown on TV screens and newspapers throughout the world. He is a household name, an eccentric, and one of the most loved and respected characters in world cricket. His idiosyncratic style and infectious humour has endeared him to millions, transcending his sport. Fiercely proud of his background as a Yorkshire miner's son, his account follows his youth in Barnsley, his early days as a cricketer, through to his career as an umpire and his experiences of the international scene, all told with total honesty by this very private person. As the most respected umpire in the game, Dickie has serious and constructive points to make about modern cricket. He has fearlessly berated fast-bowlers when necessary. He has some sharp comments to make about ball tampering and he has mixed feelings about the introduction of the third umpire. Dickie wanted to go out at the top and he has certainly done so - after standing at 66 Test matches, three World Cup finals and 92 one-day Internationals. Combining forthright views on the game and those involved in it, compelling accounts of what it is like behind the scenes in cricket at the highest level, and the hilarious stories for which Dickie is so well known, here is the refreshing and enjoyable autobiography of a sporting legend.




Dickie Bird Autobiography


Book Description

Dickie Bird's retirement was an international event shown on TV screens and newspapers throughout the world. He is a household name, an eccentric, and one of the most loved and respected characters in world cricket. His idiosyncratic style and infectious humour has endeared him to millions, transcending his sport. Fiercely proud of his background as a Yorkshire miner's son, his account follows his youth in Barnsley, his early days as a cricketer, through to his career as an umpire and his experiences of the international scene, all told with total honesty by this very private person. As the most respected umpire in the game, Dickie has serious and constructive points to make about modern cricket. He has fearlessly berated fast-bowlers when necessary. He has some sharp comments to make about ball tampering and he has mixed feelings about the introduction of the third umpire. Dickie wanted to go out at the top and he has certainly done so - after standing at 66 Test matches, three World Cup finals and 92 one-day Internationals. Combining forthright views on the game and those involved in it, compelling accounts of what it is like behind the scenes in cricket at the highest level, and the hilarious stories for which Dickie is so well known, here is the refreshing and enjoyable autobiography of a sporting legend.




80 Not Out: My Favourite Cricket Memories


Book Description

Hardly a week goes by without Dickie Bird visiting a county or Test match arena where he can keep up to date with all that is happening in the cricket world, while at the same time taking the opportunity to reflect, in the company of old friends and acquaintances, on his own colourful contribution to the sport that lasted for over half a century. Dickie remains the most famous umpire of them all and is still highly respected throughout the world. A lovable eccentric with a joyful sense of fun, he decided, as he approached his eightieth birthday, to recall the highlights of his life in cricket, while also providing an illuminating insight into what he has been up to since his retirement.




White Cap and Bails


Book Description

In this anecdotal book, the unstoppable Dickie Bird takes one County Cricket Club at a time and revisits each with the aid of memorabilia, statistics, books and videos. A mass of new hilarious stories flow from Dickie as he flexes his memory: he describes the cricketers, the matches and the character of these clubs. Dickie also relives his journeys as a umpire to clubs and Test match arenas overseas and recalls the humorous times that have filled his unique career. A must have for cricket enthusiasts everywhere.




Miles


Book Description

Miles discusses his life and music from playing trumpet in high school to the new instruments and sounds from the Caribbean.




Looking for Lost Bird


Book Description

In this haunting memoir, Yvette Melanson tells of being raised to believe that she was white and Jewish. At age forty-three, she learned that she was a "Lost Bird," a Navajo child taken against her family's wishes, and that her grieving birth mother had never stopped looking for her until the day she died. In this haunting memoir, Yvette Melanson tells of being raised to believe that she was white and Jewish. At age forty-three, she learned that she was a "Lost Bird," a Navajo child taken against her family's wishes, and that her grieving birth mother had never stopped looking for her until the day she died.




No Experience Necessary


Book Description

No Experience Necessary is Chef Norman Van Aken’s joyride of a memoir. In it he spans twenty-plus years and nearly as many jobs—including the fateful job advertisement in the local paper for a short-order cook with “no experience necessary.” Long considered a culinary renegade and a pioneering chef, Van Aken is an American original who chopped and charred, sweated and seared his way to cooking stardom with no formal training, but with extra helpings of energy, creativity, and faith. After landing on the deceptively breezy shores of Key West, Van Aken faced hurricanes, economic downturns, and mercurial moneymen during the decades when a restaurant could open and close faster than you can type haute cuisine. From a graveyard shift grunt at an all-night barbeque joint to a James Beard–award finalist for best restaurant in America, Van Aken put his trusting heart, poetic soul, natural talent, and ever-expanding experience into every venture—and helped transform the American culinary landscape along the way. In the irreverent tradition of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential,and populated by a rogues’ gallery of colorful characters—including movie stars, legendary musicians, and culinary giants Julia Child, Emeril Lagasse, and Charlie Trotter—No Experience Necessary offers a uniquely personal, highly-entertaining under-the-tablecloth view of the high-stakes world of American cuisine told with wit, insight, and great affection by a natural storyteller.




The Wit of Cricket


Book Description

A bumper collection of the funniest anecdotes, jokes and stories from cricket's best-loved personalities. Cricket is a funny old game -- even when rain stops play! Now you can read not only the most popular stories by five of the game's all-time great characters -- Richie Benaud, Dickie Bird, Henry Blofeld, Brian Johnston and Fred Trueman - but also the humour and insights of modern players including Michael Atherton, Andrew Flintoff, Darren Gough, Kevin Pietersen and Shane Warne. Crammed full of dozens of hilarious anecdotes about legendary Test cricketers such as Ian Botham, Geoffrey Boycott, Denis Compton, Michael Holding and Merv Hughes -- plus broadcasting gaffes, sledging, short-sighted umpires and the first male streaker at Lord's!




Blood Done Sign My Name


Book Description

The “riveting”* true story of the fiery summer of 1970, which would forever transform the town of Oxford, North Carolina—a classic portrait of the fight for civil rights in the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird *Chicago Tribune On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a twenty-three-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses. Tyson’s father, the pastor of Oxford’s all-white Methodist church, urged the town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end, however, the Tyson family was forced to move away. Tim Tyson’s gripping narrative brings gritty blues truth and soaring gospel vision to a shocking episode of our history. FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD “If you want to read only one book to understand the uniquely American struggle for racial equality and the swirls of emotion around it, this is it.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Blood Done Sign My Name is a most important book and one of the most powerful meditations on race in America that I have ever read.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer “Pulses with vital paradox . . . It’s a detached dissertation, a damning dark-night-of-the-white-soul, and a ripping yarn, all united by Tyson’s powerful voice, a brainy, booming Bubba profundo.”—Entertainment Weekly “Engaging and frequently stunning.”—San Diego Union-Tribune




Shep


Book Description

Beginning with an evocative account of David Sheperd’s North Devon childhood, this book covers his entire cricket career, beginning with playing for Devon in the minor Counties League before joining Gloucester in 1965. He retired in 1979 and became an umpire the following year. His time as an umpire has seen cricket become dominated by money, the introduction of floodlit games and of the controversial electronic "third umpire," video evidence, and world-wide match fixing scandals. The book contains informed opinions on all these aspects of cricket past, present, and future, as well as a wealth of fascinating and amusing anecdotes from a man who has stayed at the center of the game for nearly 40 years, never losing his love of the game or his sense of humor.