Gideon Haigh

Gideon Haigh is an English-born Australian journalist, who writes about sport (especially cricket) and business. He was born in London of a Yorkshire father but raised in Geelong, Australia by a Tasmanian mother. [cite web | url=http://www.aba.org.au/source/resource/2006%20ConferenceProgram.pdf | title=Australian Booksellers Association, 82nd Annual Conference | year=2006 | quote=NB: PDF is 3.2 megabytes in size.]

Career

Haigh has been writing about sport and business for over twenty years. He began his career as a journalist, writing on business for "The Age" newspaper from 1984 to 1992 and for "The Australian" from 1993 to 1995. He has since contributed to over twenty newspapers and magazines, [ [http://www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au/2004/content/standard_c1.asp?name=HaighG "Brisbane Writers Festival - Gideon Haigh"] ] both on business topics as well as on sport, most of it cricket. He wrote regularly for "The Guardian" during the 2006-07 Ashes series.

Haigh has authored nineteen books and edited seven more. Of those on a cricketing theme, his historical work includes "The Cricket War" and "Summer Game", his biographies "The Big Ship" and "Mystery Spinner", anthologies of his writings "Ashes 2005" and "Game for Anything", as well as "The Vincibles", his famous story of the South Yarra Cricket Club of which he is life member and perennate vice-president, and for whose newsletter he has written about cricket the longest. He has also published several books on business-related topics, such as "The Battle for BHP" and "Asbestos House", which dilates the James Hardie asbestos controversy.

That his writing is held in high regard was shown in the decision to appoint him editor of the "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia" for 1999-2000 and 2000-01. Since March 2006, he has been a regular panellist on the ABC Television's sports panel show "Offsiders". He was also a regular co-host on "The Conversation Hour" with Jon Faine on 774 ABC Melbourne until near the end of 2006.

Haigh won the John Curtin Prize for Journalism in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2006 [ [http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/literary/pla/jcprize/winner2006.html Winner 2006: John Curtin Prize for Journalism, State Library of Victoria ] ] for his essay "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid" [ [http://www.themonthly.com.au/excerpts/issue9_excerpt_001.html "Information Idol: How Google is making us stupid", The Monthly, February 2006] ] , which was published in "The Monthly" magazine. Haigh asserted that the quality of discourse could suffer as a source of information's worth is judged by Google according to its previous degree of exposure to the "status quo". He believes the pool of information available to those using Google as their sole avenue of inquiry is inevitably limited and possibly compromised due to covert commercial influences.

When not travelling between cricket grounds and countries, Haigh lives in Melbourne with his cat Trumper and fiancée.

List of works

Cricket-related

* (1993) "The Cricket War: the Inside Story of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket"
* (1994) "The Border Years"
* (1995) "One Summer Every Summer: An Ashes Journal"
* (1996) "On Top Down Under : the Story of Australia's Cricket Captains"
* (1997) "Summer Game: Australian test cricket 1949-71"
* (1997) "Australian Cricket Anecdotes" (ed.)
* (1999) "Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson"
* (1999) "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia 1999-2000"
* (2000) "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia 2000-01"
* (2001) "The Big Ship: Warwick Armstrong and the Making of Modern Cricket"
* (2002) "Many a Slip: A Diary of a Club Cricket Season"
* (2002) "The Vincibles: A Suburban Cricket Odyssey"
* (2002) "Endless Summer: 140 Years of Australian Cricket in Wisden"
* (2004) "Game for Anything: Writings on Cricket"
* (2005) "Ashes 2005: The Full Story of the Test Series"
* (2006) "Peter the Lord's Cat: And Other Unexpected Obituaries from Wisden" (ed.)
* (2006) "The Book of Ashes Anecdotes" (ed.)
* (2007) "All Out: The Ashes 2006-2007"
* (2007) "Silent Revolutions: Writings on Cricket History"
* (2007) "Inside Story: Unlocking Australian Cricket's Archives" (with David Frith)

Other

* (1987) "The Battle for BHP"
* (1999) "One of a Kind: the Story of Bankers Trust Australia 1969-1999"
* (2003) "The Uncyclopedia"
* (2004) "Fat Cats: The Strange Cult of the CEO"
* (2004) "Tencyclopedia"
* (2006) "Asbestos House"
* (2008) "The Racket: How Abortion Became Legal in Australia".

References

External links

* [http://www.yarras.com South Yarra Cricket Club]

*The cricket war : the inside story of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket in [http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an21834958 Libraries Australia]

*The Border years in [http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an11056226 Libraries Australia]