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Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North
by: Stuart Maconie

List Price: £6.99

Off The Bookshelf's Price: £4.10

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Used Price: £1.24
Third Party New Price: £2.34

Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 914.270486
EAN: 9780091910235
ISBN: 0091910234
Label: Ebury Press
Manufacturer: Ebury Press
Number Of Pages: 354
Publication Date: February 07, 2008
Publisher: Ebury Press
Studio: Ebury Press
Sales Rank: 1144

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A book of two halves
For the most part, this book is entertaining and witty. Maconie's enthusiam for his subject is contagious and the stuff you are learning is genuinely interesting. Then he stops writing about Lancashire and starts on Yorkshire.

I can't help but think that this book would have been better if Maconie had stuck to what he knows, ie: the west side of the Pennines. Quite how, for example, he can make various claims about 'professional Yorkshiremen' (a dying breed anyway) and deny the existence of the Lancastrian equivalent is an unforgivable oversight that kind of gives away where Maconie's loyalties lie. They are not called 'professional Lancastrians' as such, but how many 'professional Scousers' and 'professional Mancs' could we name? ... Read More:

Rating:

- Entertaining and perceptive
This is a superb book; although it has the appearance of belonging to the recently emerged sub genre of humorous and slightly outrageous travel writing, it quickly become apparent that there's far more to it than that. Maconie takes us on a selective tour of the North of England, visiting both his old haunts and other key areas, such as Liverpool, Harrogate and other parts of Yorkshire. Along the way, there are recollections of various amusing personal incidents and a stock of good one-liners, but alongside these, there's a depth of historical, cultural, political and social information and analysis, which is both well researched and convincingly argued. Well worth reading.

Rating:

- Whose pies are they?
I was on a cruise and the comedian was Bobby Bennett. In a question and answer session someone mentioned that he had been mentioned in Stuart Maconie's Pies and Prejudice as he was the compare of Junior Showtime in the 1970s with people like Bonnie Langford and Pauline Quirke.

That led me to read this book. The jokes about the north south divided is a bit of a cliche for comedians but the cliches are all we can go on without any facts. This book goes someway towards giving us some facts.

He story about the Wigan liking of pies is quite good.

A Bolton man who breathlessly tells his workman from Wigan about a new lunchtime offer at local pub

" A pie , a pint and a woman for 80p" The Wiganer seems ... Read More:

Rating:

- Well written, enjoyable and informative
Overall I enjoyed reading this book and as others have said it certainly has inspired me to visit some of the places described. I liked the author's writing style and most of all I found most of the historical detail interesting and educational. However after reading through relatively huge sections on Liverpool, Manchester and Wigan I was disappointed to see places like Sheffield glossed over very briefly - surely Sheffield has more to offer than the time he spent discussing the National Museum of Pop Music?

Rating:

- YES THERE IS A NORTH - SOUTH DIVIDE: WE CAN LAUGH AT OURSELVES AND SOUTHERNERS CAN'T!
BRILLIANT READ. OK - if you know the places Stuart writes about (I know the exact chippy he talks about down the road from Crewe station!) it helps but even if you don't and have never ventured north of Chalfont St Witless, it's still a great read. The two one star reviewers from "Darn Sarth" are obviously miffed at the fact that no-one can be bothered to write about "southerners" because, as Maconie points out early on in the book, there is not the strong identification of "being a southerner" as there is for those of us north of..well, according to Stuart it's north of Stoke.

It pokes fun of the north and does ask some tough questions at times but more than anything else, it is a great travelogue. Strike a light, Guv, you can't ask ... Read More:

Books : Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North