Daniel Gray

Review comments about some of Daniel’s books:

Sunday Best: Travels Through the Day of Rest
‘An appropriately leisurely but learned exploration of the day of rest in all its quiet glories: engaging, digressive and full of things I didn’t know.’
Stuart Maconie

‘Daniel Gray is such a generous writer. He takes pleasure in the people and places he encounters and then shares it in charming prose. This book is his most delightful yet.’
Peter Ross

‘Daniel Gray’s glorious sentences light up Sunday’s stained-glass window so that it shines like a lighthouse across the rest of the week. Here are all the creative contours of the so-called Day of Rest.’
Ian McMillan

‘A very clever idea (which I rather wish had occurred to me) followed through with considerable panache.’ Tom Fort

‘This engaging and quirky piece of social history is the perfect read between a Sunday roast and a post-prandial snooze.’
Country Life

Food of the Cods: How Fish & Chips Made Britain
‘This is a lyrical, amiable and educational celebration of what, alongside The Beatles, Shakespeare and the NHS, may be our greatest achievement: the chippy. Fair warning, it will make you very hungry.’
Stuart Maconie

‘Daniel Gray writes with great humour and takes tender delight in the people he meets. His book is as warm and comforting as a bag of chips on a cold night.’
Peter Ross

‘Engaging … Sprinkled with a digestible amount of social history and commentary. Like the dish, leaves you with a warm feeling afterwards.’
Daily Mail

‘There’s a fantastic musicality to Gray’s writing. We hear the sizzle of the fryer, the lilts of local accents and the buzz in the air as people wait in anticipation for their food.’
The Scots Magazine

‘Light bite rather than a full fish supper, this is a delightful mix of travelogue and fish-flavoured fact. Good fun.’
Annie Gray

‘Gray is a master at finding the universal in the local and the profound in the so-called everyday.’
Ian McMillan

‘A beautifully written paean to our greatest meal.’
Stephen Moss

‘Witty, authoritative and timely. Vivid, rich prose shimmering with warmth and a belief in the fundamental goodness of people.’
The New European

‘A highly entertaining, historically nuanced account. Wonderfully atmospheric.’
Andrew Martin

The Silence of the Stands: Finding the Joy in Football’s Lost Season
‘Powerful and poignant.’
Henry Winter

‘Joy is at the heart of Gray’s writing; his delight in the little things, humble settings and small human dramas involved in the game. From the dark of Covid, this breezy and bright love letter to football was produced. Smile. Enjoy.’
Sunday Times

‘A vivid, funny reminder of what was the weirdest time ever to be a football fan. Empathetic and poignant, it’s the game’s answer to A Journal of the Plague Year.’
Harry Pearson

‘Gray is an endearing and authentic football observer, and this book reaffirms the meaning and importance of football in so many ways.’
Late Tackle magazine

‘His peerless eye for the game’s endless little oddities and charms is used to chronicle his own return to the terraces after the forced exile of lockdown. No-one else writes with such obvious appreciation and warmth for the game.’
The Times

‘A poetic account of football while the fans were locked out.’
Scotland on Sunday

‘Covid could not stop football but it could stop fans from attending a game. It is a time that deserves to be recorded. It has found its peerless chronicler in Daniel Gray.’
The Daily Mail

‘A joyous travelogue documenting a precarious season. Moving, heartfelt and surprisingly uplifting.’
When Saturday Comes

Saturday, 3pm: 50 Eternal Delights of Modern Football
‘A warm, smiling celebration of football’s quirks, and of ours. Never mind how good a writer Daniel Gray is: what an eye he’s got. You’ll never watch a game again without liking some daft little moment and wishing you could share it with him.’
The Times

‘Each is a precision-tooled delight. Even apparently obvious subjects are described with such lyricism that the everyday is routinely transformed into the sublime. Here is a book that contains nothing but pure, unadulterated joy.’
When Saturday Comes

‘Delightfully written. Countless little gems of recognition and satisfaction, many of them very funny. a lovely little thing.’
The Daily Telegraph

‘Lovingly crafted prose-poetry. A wonderful antidote to the money-sodden excesses of the modern game.’
Late Tackle magazine

‘Full of eternal delight. I loved it to pieces. Hymns that evoke the essence of the game. A fantastic book.’
The Anfield Wrap

‘A sonnet to football, whimsical and deeply rewarding.’
Stuart Roy Clarke

Black Boots and Football Pinks: 50 Lost Wonders of the Beautiful Game
‘A heart-warming, occasionally emotional and often very funny meander down Memory Lane. A book of considerable charm, worth the price of admission for the phrase “hair wax applied methodically and in a style that considered Charles Buchan’s Football Weekly a mirror” alone.’
The Observer

‘A funny, affectionate and nostalgic celebration of quirks … It would be easy to get the tone wrong but Gray’s touch is exquisite. A book with so much warmth you could slip it into your pocket for games in winter.’
The Times

‘Often funny and absolutely authentic.’
The Herald, Sports Books of the Year

‘Fifty taken-for-granted gems of Britain’s footballing past have been preserved for posterity. An unabashed love letter to the beautiful game. Back of the net.’
The Sunday Post, Books of the Year

‘[Gray’s] poetic prose makes him the John Cheever of the penalty spot and the Joan Didion of the halfway line.’
Ian McMillan

‘Wistful and affecting.’
Michael Calvin

‘Brilliant writing.’
Jonathan Northcroft

‘An affectionate, tongue-not-quite-in-cheek lamentation for all that’s been lost from the game. Slight yet robust like a winger of the old school, this book jinks, charms and scores.’
When Saturday Comes

‘A paean to football before the days of big money and soulless stadia.’
The i newspaper

Scribbles in the Margins: 50 Eternal Delights of Books
‘Gray has become the writer of stunning books whose substance belie their brevity. They are elegant in their purpose and devastating in their power. No-one who loves reading could put down Scribbles in the Margins.’
Herald Magazine

‘A book that makes the spirit soar. A beautifully-crafted treasure.’
The Herald

‘Gray’s warm introspective eloquence invites and then indulges contented immersion in bibliographic nostalgia.’
The New European

‘A gorgeous thing. A series of lyrical loveletters to the wonders of reading. Wonderful, evocative essays. BBC Radio Scotland

‘An adorable collection of bite-sized chunks of joy.’
Reader’s Digest

Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters: Travels through England’s football provinces
‘Gray brilliantly interweaves social history, modern day public and political life and, of course, football itself…Highly recommended.’
The Daily Telegraph

‘Superlative… The book is beautifully written; pessimistic and damning, yet joyful and full of love for the game… Wonderful.’
When Saturday Comes

‘Gray writes like Lowry paints. Superb.’
BBC Lancashire

‘Like a footballing version of Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island.’
Four Four Two

‘Among urban blight, his astute eye can pick out details that are funny, redeeming or both…. Book of the Week.’
Bradford Telegraph and Argus

‘A delight. It’s the kind of book, filled with astute observations of small details, that might just convince the most confirmed football sceptic why football has such a place in our culture… a book to savour and to make you think.’
New Statesman

‘A wonderful read and like some of the very best football books out there, the actual football is merely a footnote…Really enjoyable and beautifully paced, this is one to read and keep as in ten years time it could feel even more relevant than it does right now.’
In Bed With Maradona