Slipless in Settle is a sentimental journey around club cricket in the north of England, a world far removed from the clichéd lengthening-shadows-on-the-village-green image of the summer game. This is hardcore cricket played in former pit villages and mill towns. Winner of the 2011 MCC Cricket Book of the Year, it is about the little clubs that have, down the years, produced some of the greatest players Britain has ever seen, and at one time spent a fortune on importing the biggest names in the international game to boost their battle for local supremacy.

Slipless in Settle is a warm, affectionate and outrageously funny sporting odyssey in which Andrew Flintoff and Learie Constantine rub shoulders with Asbo-tag-wearing all-rounders, there's hot-pot pie and mushy peas at the tea bar, two types of mild in the clubhouse, and a batsman is banned for a month for wearing a fireman's helmet when going out to face Joel Garner . . .

Prizes

Winner of Cricket Society Book of the Year Award 2011 (UK)

** 'By turns wry, tender and bawdy, Pearson's prose is none the less as steady and measured as a glob of gravy running down the side of a Yorkshire pudding. For anyone wishing to sample 'cricket with the crusts on', Slipless in Settle is well worth the detour Sunday Telegraph ** 'Packed with comic tales to delight the cricket aficionado and non-fan alike DAILY MIRROR

Harry Pearson is a journalist and writer who contributes regularly to the Guardian, GQ and When Saturday Comes.