Jon Hotten (born in

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alder ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

, 7 January 1965) is an English author and journalist. He is best known for the books ''Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport with No Boundaries'' (

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

2004) and ''The Years of the Locust'' (Random House 2009). ''Muscle'' was described by

Steven Poole Steven Poole (born 1972) is a British author and journalist. He particularly concerns himself with the abuse of language and has written two books on the subject: ''Unspeak'' (2006) and ''Who Touched Base In My Thought Shower?'' (2013). Biograph ...

in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' as "Superb" and by Giles Smith in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' as "when it's not alarming, it's merely amazing". ''The Years of the Locust'' was described as "standing proud in the tradition of great boxing writing" by Richard Bath in ''

Scotland on Sunday ''Scotland on Sunday'' is a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published in Edinburgh by JPIMedia and consequently assuming the role of Sunday sister to its daily stablemate '' The Scotsman''. It was originally printed in broadsheet format but in 20 ...

''. ''The Years of the Locust'' was optioned by Inflammable/

Warp Films Warp Films is an independent film and television production company based in Sheffield & London, UK. History 2001 – 2012 Warp Films was established by Warp Records founding partners Rob Mitchell and Steve Beckett. It was initially created with ...

. In June 2015 he published a novel, ''My Life and the Beautiful Music'' (Jonathan Cape). Hotten was a contributor to ''

Kerrang! ''Kerrang!'' is a British weekly magazine devoted to rock, punk and heavy metal music, currently published by Wasted Talent (the same company that owns electronic music publication '' Mixmag''). It was first published on 6 June 1981 as a on ...

'' magazine from 1987–92 and currently contributes to ''

Classic Rock Magazine ''Classic Rock'' is a British magazine and website dedicated to rock music, owned and published by Future. It was launched in October 1998 and is based in London. The magazine publishes 13 editions a year, mainly covering rock bands from the 60, ...

''. He is the author of the popular cricket blog, ''The Old Batsman'' (since November 2008) and since February 2013 a frequent contributor to ''The Cordon'' cricket blog at

Cricinfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a ...

. ''The Old Batsman'' also appears in ''

''. He is one of the co-writers, along with Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, of the 2015 cricket documentary '' Death Of A Gentleman''. He plays on the Authors XI

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

team.

References

1965 births Living people Writers from Aldershot English non-fiction writers English male journalists English male non-fiction writers {{UK-journalist-stub