Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #85969 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Rory MacLean, The Guardian
"A hilarious, easy read, bursting with manic energy and youthful
exuberance"

Hugo Rifkind - The Times
"Very funny. Dave Gorman meets Andrew Flintoff in clothes borrowed
from Billy Connolly."

The Sunday Herald
"The definitive book about cricket in unlikely parts of the
world."

Customer Reviews

Travel and cricket combined to excellent effect
Very, VERY good. I had not thought to ever see someone combine cricket with Eastern Europe - two things which fascinate me, and I had long assumed that they were mutually exclusive!
Angus Bell writes well, whether descriving an unlikely cricket match in Vilnius, hostel shenanigans or border-crossing mayhem in a clapped-out Skoda. One of those travelogues which one can read safe in the knowledge that you never quite know what's going to happen next.
More, please.

Funny, moving, and about cricket - a dream
I loved this book! I'm cricket obsessed so have a natural bias to any book about it, but this book is much more than that. It describes the writer's travels through eastern Europe to places where you would never imagine cricket being played, and the stories of how the players found the game and fell in love with it are really quite moving. If anything there's almost too much story to pack in - I wouldn't have minded more detail about the games or about the places - which shows how rich the story is. And how much fun the writer must have had.

A welcome spin on the travel book genre
To label this book as simply about 'cricket' is to do it a great disservice. It's first and foremost a travel book, from its wonderfully bizarre beginnings in the world of Montreal psychics to a Skoda-powered odyssey across the lesser-travelled paths of eastern Europe.

The difference-maker with this book is not only its once-in-a-lifetime subject matter, but its intensely witty sense of humour. It's side-splittingly funny throughout, but it's also painfully honest in its painting of the Balkan underworld in all its dodgy-dealing glory.

From the uniqueness of its achievement to the pantomime cast of characters we meet along the way, Slogging the Slavs is a must for anyone interested in travel off the beaten track. Cricket fans from pitch to armchair will lap it up, but then again so will anyone who's ever had a hard time crossing the border into parts unknown.