Parky: My Autobiography - Michael Parkinson

[Bern]

Recommended by my father-in-law for the cricketing stories. Like Parky, his hero was Keith Miller and there's an anecdote about Miller's reaction to the pressure on athletes. "They don't know what pressure means. I'll tell you what pressure is: it's having a Messerchmitt up your arse at twenty thousand feet. That's pressure." I also enjoyed Parkinson's stories of growing up in Yorkshire. I didn't know he was a jazz fan. The early days of television don't sound too different to internet start-ups and web 2.0 - maybe more alcohol. People experimented with the medium; some of it worked, some of it didn't. Parky clearly got it right.

[Jenni Wong]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book despite the huge devotion to cricket. A lot of the book seemed like his television interviews, charming and effortless yet the reality was far from it!