My Writing
Take a look at some of my books below...
"I was fascinated by this book ... Well done, Ben. And well done, Jim, both of you, for having a bit of the self that exists ‘at the still point of the turning world … there the dance is' ... Well said, and well not-said!"
From the foreword by Mike Brearley, former England cricket captain, philosopher, psychoanalyst
The Zen of Ben is a vivid portrait of England’s Test captain Ben Stokes as well as an exploration of so-called Bazball and the fast-evolving world of Test cricket. On the way it offers startling insights into the teachings of ancient wisdom traditions, the way we understand sport, and how we might each approach the challenges of life itself....
THE ZEN OF BEN: Cricket in the Moment
To be published by PITCH, August 17th 2026
Stokes’s career has been intense, unpredictable and boundary‑breaking, mirroring the bold, attacking style that has redefined England’s red‑ball game. This period of transformation in English cricket, including the 2025 India Tests and the latest Ashes series, provides a backdrop for a deeper look at how Stokes and this new approach challenge old assumptions about the sport - and about everything else.
Exploring the emotion and the psychology of sporting endeavour, the book draws on the surprising parallels between Stokes’s leadership, the fluid, joyful nature of Bazball and the strange, playful wisdom found in classic Zen stories. Rather than the lifestyle ‘zen’ of calm spaces and scented candles, this is Zen as a long-standing discipline rooted in direct action, presence and breaking through illusion. Stokes’s willingness to play without fear, embrace risk and redefine what is possible on the field offers a fresh perspective on how freedom, intent and clarity shape performance on either side of the boundary.
Bringing together cricketing insight with accounts from recent series, The Zen of Ben explores what Zen and Ben reveal about each other — and what it might mean for all of us to let go of our seriousness, to move past the fear of failure and to approach life just a little more playfully.
The Zen of Ben: Cricket in the Moment explores a sporting icon and sport itself through the lens of psychology, cultural history, personal memoir and the wisdom traditions that help us face the biggest questions in life and death.
Ben Stokes’s story told through ten key moments in his life.
The meaning of sport explored in the light of ancient wisdom: The Bhagavad Gita, The Tao Te Ching, all Zen’s bewildering koans.
Significant contributions from two England cricketing legends: Mike Brearley (former captain, distinguished psychoanalyst) and Jonathan Agnew – ‘Aggers’ of Test Match Special fame.
Personal memoir of watching and following Test cricket, starting with a fateful day at Old Trafford in 1968
A deep exploration of the psychological and emotional dimensions of sport and life, with reflections on Ben, his team-mates and the much-loved Graham Thorpe.
An alternative history of Bazball, tracing its development, its reception, and how it's been understood - or not - by those watching on.
A challenge to what we really understand by ‘winning and losing’, ‘success and failure’ – in sport and in each of our lives.
An entertaining account of Zen through the ages, its arrival in the West, its fierce determination about what can and what can’t be said.
Read and discover:
Buy THE ZEN OF BEN: Cricket in the Moment here:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-zen-of-ben/jim-green//9781836802693
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zen-Ben-Cricket-Moment/dp/1836802692
Book your place at a launch event in London or Norwich here:
GIVING UP WITHOUT GIVING UP
Meditation and Depressions
(Bloomsbury 2019)
"If it is true that all human griefs have their roots in our inability to sit quietly in our own company for five minutes, this spare, candid and calm introduction to meditative practice will be a life-saving gift for many living in or on the edge of the darkness that regularly overtakes us in this uncontrollable world."
- Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury
What if the suffering that we call depression contains experiences and lessons without which we cannot be fully alive?'
This is one of the many startling questions that Giving Up Without Giving Up invites us to ask ourselves. Depression seems to be a contemporary epidemic, a condition understandably feared and avoided by all. Yet this book explores the possibility that we have much to learn from the desert times in our lives, when it feels as though we are losing everything, most of all any sense of who we are.
Drawing on his extensive experience of meditation within both the Buddhist and Christian contemplative traditions, as well as his own times of personal loss and bewilderment, Jim Green offers us a moving account of just how this wisdom practice can accompany each of us as we make 'the gentle pilgrimage of recovery' He guides us through 'the invention of depression' in the mid-twentieth century, questioning the increasing tendency to medicalise human suffering.
Based on the insight that 'Life is the Treatment', he offers a thorough and practical approach to our times of personal desolation, showing how we can learn to treat ourselves and each other with care and compassion. At the heart of this approach is the practice of meditation, learned from the Buddha, The Desert Fathers and Mothers and from Jesus himself.
It's a practice which, this heartfelt book insists, can help you to be depressed - which might mean in mourning - for exactly as long as you need to be, no longer and no shorter. Then, changed, you are brought back to life, which is change itself.'