Shadows on the Grass - Tapa blanda

Simon Raven's wonderfully funny cricketing memoir covers a golden age from the early 1930s to the 1950s. With his unerring eye for observation, Raven hilariously recounts matches played at Charterhouse, Cambridge and cricket grounds as far afield as Bangalore, Kenya and Corfu. The autobiography is peopled with the author's famous and infamous friends and partners in crime and littered with memorable anecdotes.

Simon Raven was born in London and educated at Charterhouse and King's College Cambridge, where he read Classics. Afterwards he served in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. In 1957 he resigned his commission and turned to book reviewing. His first novel The Feathers of Death, brought instant recognition and his popular First Born of Egypt series encompasses seven volumes. His TV and radio plays, of which Royal Foundation is the best known, are classics. He also wrote the scripts for the Pallisers series and Edward and Mrs Simpson.