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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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. A sort of rambling memoir about his life occasionally punctuated by weird crowbarred references to things that happened in cricket at the time.

In a fact-finding field trip in the name of catharsis, White hunts down the main players in said memory and hears about their own personal experience and recollections. 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. I should have realised after trying 'The Tailenders' Podcast and finding it extremely irritating that this just wasn't going to be the book for me. I like the Maccabees and I really like Tailenders (when it’s not being Jimmy Anderson propaganda) and I love cricket.With candour and lyricism, the ‘Duchess of Coolsville’ (Time) takes us on a singular journey through her nomadic childhood, to her years as a teenage runaway, through her legendary love affair with Tom Waits, and ultimately her longevity as the hardest working woman in rock and roll.

I’ve never heard of the Maccabee’s but as Felix and I both share a love of cricket, guitars and loud rock music I put his book on my to read list. It is quite simply the best music biography I’ve read since Cash by Johnny Cash and as a bonus it also contains allusions to Luis Boa Morte. Felix White charts his life through a litany of cricket matches, characters and afternoons spent in sparsely populated Oval stands watching Surrey. However, this book goes far deeper than just a celebration of cricket and music as it also explores Felix's life as a whole, with themes of grief, love and purpose.His debut book, ‘It’s Always Summer Somewhere’, a memoir on a life lived through the love of cricket and music while processing young grief, is a Sunday Times Bestseller and has received widespread praise and plaudits from revered names across the arts and sports worlds, including Stephen Fry, Pete Paphides and Toby Jones. And, through the prism of her extraordinary experiences, she offers vital insights into the nature of race, class, feminism, sexuality and ageing in modern Britain. A lovely guy - and this is a beautiful book which describes the consequences of losing a parent painfully well.

A friend recommended this book and I listened to the audio version, surprised at how much I loved it. I loved the way that the intertwining aspects of the book came together - the rise and the end of The Maccabees, England men’s cricket team winning the World Cup, and the more personal aspects of White’s life. The final crow barred reference of England's World Cup triumph as some sort of personal victory for the author is laugh out loud funny (in the bad way) and narcissistic in equal measure. I admit to having to stop reading a couple of times towards the end as I didn’t want to cry on the train I was on!From school-day horrors and mud flinging fun to nights at Liverpool’s punk club, Eric’s, Sergeant was fuelled by and thrived on music. He does this through his total immersion in his two passions, one of which he watches from afar and through the other, he forms a band. A beautifully written book, ostensibly about cricket and music (you really do need to love cricket to read this) but really about death and grief and moving on.