Jon Hotten

Jon Hotten (born in Aldershot, 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 2004) and The Years of the Locust (Random House 2009). Muscle was described by Steven Poole in The Guardian as "Superb"^[1] and by Giles Smith in The Times as "when it's not alarming, it's merely amazing".^[2] The Years of the Locust was described as "standing proud in the tradition of great boxing writing" by Richard Bath in Scotland on Sunday.^[3]

The Years of the Locust was optioned by Inflammable/Warp Films.^[4][5]

In June 2015 he published a novel, My Life and the Beautiful Music (Jonathan Cape).^[6]

Hotten was a contributor to Kerrang! magazine from 1987–92 and currently contributes to Classic Rock Magazine. He is the author of the popular cricket blog, The Old Batsman (since November 2008)^[7] and since February 2013 a frequent contributor to The Cordon cricket blog at Cricinfo.^[8] The Old Batsman also appears in The Guardian.^[9] He is one of the co-writers, along with Sam Collins and Jarrod Kimber, of the 2015 cricket documentary Death Of A Gentleman.^[10] Hotten has presented two seasons of The Nightwatchman podcast.^[11]

He plays on the Authors XI cricket team.^[12]

Bibliography

• Unlicensed: Random Notes from Boxing's Underbelly, Transworld Publishers, 1998
• Muscle: A Writer's Trip Through a Sport with No Boundaries, Vintage Publishing, 2004
• The Years of the Locust: A True Story of Murder, Money and Mayhem in the Last Age of Boxing, Vintage Publishing, 2009
• My Life and The Beautiful Music, Vintage Publishing, 2015
• The Meaning of Cricket, Vintage Publishing, 2016
• Bat, Ball and Field: The Elements of Cricket, HarperCollins, 2022
• (with Geoffrey Boycott) Being Geoffrey Boycott: A First and Second-Hand Account of 108 Caps, Fairfield Books, 2022