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Rain Men: Madness of Cricket | 
 enlarge | Author: Marcus Berkmann
Publisher: Abacus
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.04
You Save: £7.95 (99%)
New (24) Used (31) from £0.04
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 14191
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0349107424
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
EAN: 9780349107424
ASIN: 0349107424
Publication Date: April 4, 1996
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Second hand paperback book, fair wear and tear, books always graded fairly, shipped promptly 1st class from the UK airmail for overseas buyers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
Absolutely hilarious! And true to life! October 8, 2007
Dr. J. L. D. Pearse (Gloucestershire, UK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I came to this book after reading Harry Thompson's "When Penguins Stopped Play", encouraged by the comments in some reviews of that book (which I enjoyed) that this one would be so much better. And it is! I think one needs to be a player/ex-player (at not too high a level)/scorer/umpire/cricket "widow" to get the most of out it. But for those in any of those categories, be warned that you will encounter very strange looks from anyone in your vicinity where you are reading it as you will find yourself snorting out loud with laughter on almost every page.
Winter days thinking about cricket, pre-season indoor nets, TV or radio commentaries on England Test failures, the talents (or otherwise) of members of your own side, the awesome-looking opposition, the bad umpiring decisions (deliberate or just plain daft), players crying off late or getting lost en route, over-indulgent lunches and teas, the captain's task of trying to keep every player happy - we have all experienced them but Marcus Berkmann brings them (and more) vividly and colourfully to life in a journey through the year of a cricketer. Plus memories of "little Harry Pilling", the boring Chris Tavare and others who will be well known to the real cricket lover. It's all there, and so well written. Get it and enjoy it - but be prepared to split your sides with laughter!
Drink-spillingly funny and honest to boot September 20, 2006
Peter Martin (Hampshire, UK)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
For a humble Sunday second eleven wicketkeeper, reading this book is like gazing into a mirror and seeing reflected in it the richness and absurdity of the game I love and the collection of similarly warped and addicted individuals I share it with.
If your team and two hangers on drive off to an away match, and cluster in threes to share cars (four is too many with full bags of kit), then arithmetic demands there will be one of you left over. Have you ever been that one, reluctantly driving ON YOUR OWN and with the whole journey to wonder if your place is in peril?
Have you seen a former Bletchley code-breaker reduced to tears trying to reconstruct a half-hearted attempt at scoring by a love-struck, mobile phone-bonded colt? Does he stuff that missing four on John's innings total, or does Clive count all his runs? Is a lifetime's friendship in the balance?
Have you ever secretly taken FIVE sausage rolls, hiding them under two carefully arranged sandwiches?
Why does it always rain just after you arrive at Kidmore End?
If this means anything to you, get the book, laugh till the tears stream down your face, viva Berkmann.
So good I decided to emulate Berkmann August 11, 2006
A. C. Metcalfe (UK)
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
his book has compelled me to do two things I would never have done before:
1. write a review so evangelical I am about how funny this book is; and
2. set up my own hopeless cricket team with a bunch of rugby, football and hockey players from university with the same levels of success of the team described in these pages.
I can not imagine how anyone but the most hardened anti-sports fan can fail to enjoy this book. I find that there is a lot of drivel written about cricket which seems be in love with its own sense of history and literature but this is a real treat. Don't go and buy the next Beckham, Rooney or Lampard autobiography - read a book about proper sportsmen who really suffer for their love.
... and A Few Good Men Cricket Club are looking for a good fast bowler by the way...
If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit join our club! July 29, 2006
J. M. Griffiths
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I remember being escorted from the canteen at work whilst crippled up with laughter, the first time I read "Vintage Stuff" by Tom Sharpe. This was worse!
Having played at "The Gibbon" and some of the other grounds exquisitely described by Marcus Berkmann I woke up in intensive care and knew life was never going to be the same again. If an ex-cricketer does nothing else this winter, he should read this book.
 Mildly amusing in the main, casualty-ward funny in others September 11, 2005
Caterkiller (Darlington, UK)
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
To get the most out of this book you need to be familiar with the minutae of village cricket and the characters of bowlers,umpires and batsmen. The book is at its most sprightly when describing the annual rituals of the cricket fan: pre-season anticipation, the joys of listening to overseas test matches at 3am, and how to "out" youself as a cricket-fan in present football-obssessed climate. The book slows down though when concerning the characters involved: compulsive-obssessives, deluded has-beens and never-weres who can be found in any sport, not just cricket. And don't even get the author started on women's cricket. The dissappointing chapters of the book peppered with in-jokes and cartoon cricketers are more than compensated for by the sections on the "joys" of attending a test match during England's 1990's wilderness years, and an hilarious section on the career of world-class-cure-for-insomnia blocker Chris Tavare: I could quite happily have read another five chapters on that subject.
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