He now lives in Montreal, just five minutes from Ikea, in a suburb where everyone wears slippers and has a snow blower. His work is divided by writing, coaching cricket, and public speaking engagements. He spends his spare hours playing and organising cricket for Pirates of the St Lawrence.

The Book

If you have or have not read Harry Potter, you will enjoy Batting on the Bosphorus. It’s a true story about driving 8,000 miles around the former Soviet Bloc in a Skoda, playing cricket against the world’s strangest teams, on the advice of a Canadian psychic. Originally self-published as Slogging The Slavs and sold out of the author’s bedroom, the book is now published in five continents and available anywhere except North Korea. Angus’s mum urges you to read it on public transport, and to order 5,000 copies through your local library. In 2008, the book was serialised on BBC Radio 4′s Book of the Week.

The book is published by Canongate (UK & Ireland), Penguin Books (South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand), Douglas & MacIntyre (USA & Canada)

Other writing credits include:

The Sunday Times (South Africa)
The Times (UK)
Inside Sport Magazine (Australia)
The Wisden Cricketer Magazine
The Wisden Cricketer’s Almanack
All Out Cricket Magazine
Cricinfo (India)
Menz Magazine (Canada)
Geist Magazine (Canada)

*As read on BBC Radio 4′s Book of the Week!*

“This book deserves to be as big a hit as the blow dealt a cricket ball on the bridge over the Bosphorus, propelling it from Europe into Asia” Daily Telegraph

“Very, very funny” CBC Canada

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk and save today!! Or here to be whisked to Amazon.com! Available in stores in the US & Canada, UK, Ireland, India, Oz & NZ now!

The Cover Blurb…

Scotsman Angus Bell is innocently working for the Montreal Mafia when a psychic tells him an infant ghost is feeding him ideas.

He’s told he’ll be leaving North America to embark on a travelling media project. When the words “cricket” and “Ukraine” pop into his head, he uncovers a cricketing world across central and Eastern Europe.

From tournaments on ice in Estonia to university leagues in the crumbling Crimea; from a Croatian military island to totalitarian Belarus, Slavs are playing the Englishman’s game. Angus sets off in his Škoda to smack them all for them.

With fingerless ‘Tamil Tigers’ in Prague, a bomb plotter in the Austrian Alps, mafiosos and an MI6 secret agent making the teamsheets, Angus soon discovers a shadowy side of Eastern European cricket.

He becomes the first man to hit a ball between continents, and ends up captain of an international team. Between games, he is pursued by KGB, becomes embroiled in a drug bust on the Midnight Express and seeks emergency treatment from a Romanian Dentist.

His passengers include a Guatemalan anarchist, a Ukrainian chicken and an Irish tobacco farmer who played cricket and rugby for Rhodesia.

Batting on the Bosphorus is a hilarious and unique traveller’s tale, taking the reader through Balkan minefields, border bribes, and Sarajevo graveyards at 2 a.m.

It redefines the spirit of cricket, and will make the game’s most sworn enemy a fan…

What the Reviewers Say…

“Very funny. Dave Gorman meets Andrew Flintoff in clothes borrowed from Billy Connolly” Hugo Rifkind, The Times

“Highly entertaining” Independent on Sunday *Book of the Week*

“Bill Bryson meets Jack Kerouac, peppered with Judith Chalmers. What a dinner party!…Priceless!” All Out Cricket

“Truly amazing!” Birmingham Post

“The definitive book about cricket in unlikely parts” Sunday Herald

“Bell’s funny, surprising and occasionally shocking adventures redefine the spirit of cricket” Sunday Sun

“A hilarious, easy read, bursting with manic energy and youthful exuberance. It is rich with dry humour and completely free of pretence…Between Polish brothels and a Bosnian minefield, he has produced a fine first book. I await his next with anticipation, ready to be knocked for six again.” Rory MacLean, The Guardian

“Very funny” BBC Radio London

“Surreal and splendidly humorous” The Scotsman *Top Sport Books of 2006*

“Hugely entertaining” Spin Magazine *****5/5*****

“I challenge you to put this book down…even if you aren’t interested in cricket, by the time you’ve finished you will be. This is a beautifully written work that will have you laughing out loud” Cricket World

“Seriously entertaining” Packed Magazine

“Weird and wonderful… One of the maddest, most enterprising cricket tours of all time” Lawrence Booth, The Guardian

“One of the most bizarre sporting sagas committed to paper…mind-bending…enormously entertaining… Hilarious” Lanark Gazette

“A hilarious journey filled with bonkers characters, strange locations, and, most of all, lots and lots of wickets” Boys Toys – Book of the Month – *****5/5*****

“Wonderful…a great story” About.com *****5/5***** See the review and interview here!

“Unique and extraordinary” The Australian Times

“Whether cricket is your thing or not, Slogging The Slavs is as good a case of culture collisions as you will probably read this year…Angus Bell has in some ways shoved two fingers up to the other notable Scottish roadtrip of the last few years – Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round. Because, quite simply, it’s better.” European Vibe Magazine *****5/5*****

“At first I thought this must be a book of fiction, but soon realised that not even a collaboration between Raymond. E. Feist, Clive Barker and Ben Elton, could produce such a hilarious mystic nightmare” CricketWeb.net

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