Spinner

by Ron Elliott

A simple boy with an amazing gift. A promise to a dying man. And a nation that wants to believe. Can a twelve year old boy be the hero his country needs? David Donald is a 12-year-old boy with an amazing bowling arm. He’s a spinner who becomes the stuff of legend. His guardian, Uncle Michael, is also a spinner — a great Australian bullshit artist, a shyster and mythmaker. It’s between the wars. It’s the glory days of cricket. Together, David and Michael will rout the English and reveal more than a little about the shaping of the Australian psyche.

473 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Amy]

Lovely story!

[Sarah Shrubb]

I started off lukewarm, but it grew on me. It does indeed help if you know a little something about cricket, but our lead character is a terrific young man, and some of the other characters, especially the other lead, his Uncle Michael, developed well as the book progressed. The unlikeliness of the whle scenario worried me for a while, but if you let yourself go with it, it works. And the book gives a fine picture of Australia not long after WWI, and of those wo returned relatively whole physically, but not so whole emotionally. Packed quite a punch, though a quiet and measured one, in the end.

[Trisha]

absorbing, like a good cricket match (except most of them, aren't really, are they?)

[Danny Fahey]

Wonderful tale for anyone, not just lovers of cricket.

[Lisa]

Fabulous book! See my review http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...