Stephen Chalke has been exploring cricket's past since the mid-1990s, mostly as an oral historian, interviewing former players and administrators. His first book, `Runs in the Memory', a portrait of county cricket in the 1950s, was Frank Keating's Sports Book of the Year in the Guardian, and he has followed this with several award-winning titles. `At the Heart of English Cricket' - based on the life and memories of the former administrator Geoffrey Howard - was The Cricket Society Book of the Year while his collaborations with Bob Appleyard (`No Coward Soul') and Tom Cartwright (`The Flame Still Burns') were both the Wisden Book of the Year. For ten years he was a regular contributor to the Wisden Cricketer magazine, and he has also written for The Times and the Independent. A collection of his articles, `The Way It Was', won the National Sporting Club's Cricket Book of the Year award, and his history of the county championship, `Summer's Crown', a book sponsored by the England and Wales Cricket Board, was the Cricket Writers' Club's Book of the Year.
