Ashes books and DVDs

How We Won The Ashes - PA Sport
Methuen
The Press Association's offering is a paperback with few frills, although there are some colour photos to leaven the grainy black-and-white ones, plus some interesting run-charts, which use the PA's straight-from-the-scorers stats. The commentary comes session by session, and so do the scorecards, with no complete end-of-Test card, which traditionalists will probably grumble about (I already have). But the text is straightforward and easy to read: if you don't particularly want to be sidetracked by too much analysis, or backtracked to Botham or Bodyline, then this could be the one for you. Steven Lynch

Battle for the Ashes - David Frith
Ebury Press
"The dust hasn't settled yet," writes Ashley Giles in the foreword - and that's all too apparent in this book, a disappointing effort from the quality writer David Frith. This book has a very print-while-you-think feel: you have to wade through reams of build-up - more than one hundred pages in fact - until you get to the first Test report, which is on page 115 of just 256 pages. And even then key incidents aren't properly set into a proper context. As for the photography, well it looks plain cheap. Jenny Thompson

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England's Ashes - The Daily Telegraph writers
HarperCollins
Britain's last-remaining national broadsheet becomes a coffee-table tome, with this weighty and attractive memento of an extraordinary summer. Comprising a mixture of day-by-day match reports from their chief cricket correspondent, Derek Pringle; off-the-cuff analysis from Simon Hughes and Martin Johnson; authoritative opinions from Michael Parkinson, and tied together by Philip Brown's impressive camerawork, it is equally worthy of being read from cover-to-cover as it is of being dipped into from time to time. Simon Briggs completes the package with a timeline of past Ashes confrontations, plus an exhaustive array of player profiles of the 25 combatants on display, dominated - unsurprisingly - by those two giants of the series, Shane Warne and Andrew Flintoff. Andrew Miller

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Winning the Ashes - Stephen Lamb and Ralph Dellor
If you thought the Ashes finished in September, you're wrong; they're still very much alive. With a myriad of books and DVDs covering every possible angle, we're afforded the luxury of some outstanding reading material to quench our Ashes thirst, and the indignation of some less thirst-quenching ones, including this: Winning The Ashes. In short, it is a near ball-by-ball account of the summer's events which, for the first two Tests (at Lord's and Edgbaston) provide entertaining reading. Accompanied by a medley of astonishingly crisp and evocative photos, it's a pleasing reminder of the summer - but not one I would eagerly return to in a year's time necessarily, not one I could wholeheartedly recommend. The prose is fluent and readable, but there is too much emphasis on each and every wicket which lends the book a formulaic, dull feel; it would prove a good buy for those who don't have a TV - it is that detailed. The photos, however, are worthy of a second mention. Provided by Getty Images, each page has one, sometimes two, full-colour pictures depicting the action, the passion, the cheering and the trudging, in remarkable detail. Somehow, stills evoke more memories than films or DVDs can. It's not for everyone - there are more wholesome books which recount the summer's hysteria. One for the Tube, or the dentist's waiting room - but not one to sober up with in front of the fire on Boxing Day.Will Luke

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The unforgettable Ashes - Jonathan Rice
Methuen
Like some of Geraint Jones's performances during the Ashes, Jonathan Rice's reflection on the summer suffers through dodgy timing. In this case, it is that the book is the last of 13 dealing with the Ashes to be released this autumn. As a result, it has been largely overlooked, which is a shame as it is actually an entertaining read. A few more of the personal reflections - his preview to the second Test, for example, centres on a chat with Chris Old at the chippie he now runs in Cornwall - would have been welcome and would have helped the book carve out its own niche. Rice's pleasant style makes for an easy read, and this would work well were he dealing with something that had not been already documented and dissected to the nth degree. That, however, is not his fault. But his publishers have not done him any favours with such a late entry to the race for the Christmas market.

Is It Cowardly To Pray For Rain? - The Guardian
Abacus The Guardian's over-by-over coverage, where the user engages in banter with the team of journalists following the game, became the web's version of Test Match Special. This has now been transferred to print so it is possible to relive each excruciating moment all over again. The book reproduces every session of the series as it appeared on the site, and there is nothing wrong with this, but given the skill and wit of the writers it is a bit of a shame that they didn't supplement the OBO reports with additional analysis in the same crisp, humorous style. However, such was the cult following that developed throughout the summer that people would end up discussing anything and everything from dating, dinner and Rob Smyth's frequent hangovers. Those who got hooked in the summer can now experience the fun (if that's the right word) all over again. Andrew McGlashan

DVD