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Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North | 
 enlarge | Author: Stuart Maconie
Publisher: Ebury Press
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.39
You Save: £7.60 (95%)
New (23) Used (25) from £0.39
Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 531
Media: Paperback
Pages: 354
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1
ISBN: 0091910234
Dewey Decimal Number: 914.270486
EAN: 9780091910235
ASIN: 0091910234
Publication Date: February 7, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Covers show a bit of wear and creasing but perfectly readable and very entertaining read.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 I loved it - and I live in Surrey! May 25, 2007
Dr. George L. Sik (Epsom, Surrey)
37 out of 39 found this review helpful
I happened to buy Stuart Maconie's excellent guide to the North - part Bill Brysonesque comic travel guide, part a genuinely heartfelt portrait of everything he loves about the area - just before going on an extensive driving tour for my work, incorporating many of the cities described. Not only was it an excellent companion on my travels, but I found out so much I didn't know, even though I have spent a great deal of time in the North over the years.
What is so engaging about Maconie's prose is that he is fully aware of the prejudices that exist about the North and about specific cities and nods to them jokily while leaving no one in any doubt that stereotypes and oversimplifications are just that.
His passion for music and history come out on almost every page but it is the humour that sells it - showing once again how a light touch can make some very serious social and political observations. I challenge anyone - Southerners included - not to enjoy this and learn from it.
Even when Maconie makes little mistakes (it's LOUIS Tussaud's in Blackpool and he seems to have merged two separate Viz characters into one) he's easily forgiven because he passes on such a wealth of fascinating and frequently laugh-out-loud material (a passing reference to how people mispronounce 'Clitheroe' being a case in point!)
I guarantee it'll change your perception of Wigan at the very least.
Caught In-between March 15, 2007
J. Grundy (Hucknall, Nottinghamshire)
29 out of 31 found this review helpful
As I live in the East Midlands, I am one of those caught between stereo-types. To Southerners, well, we're in the North but we're not about to be accepted as true Northerners by the average Lancastrian or Yorkshireman (not to mention that neither are 'proper' Northerners according to Geordies or so it seems!). As such, people who live around here have a little insight into both camps as we're a minor melting pot. For example, one lad at my school had the proverbial ripped out of him when he referred to his midday meal as 'lunch' and not dinner as all right-thinking people do! Yes, some around here are confused too.
Personally speaking, as a son of a miner and a textile worker I regard myself as a dyed-in-the wool 'Northerner' in the kind of spirit that Stuart Maconie discusses at the end of his excellent book. But am doubtlessly wholly suspect due to the lack of a strong identifiable regional accent - we have one but I doubt many outside of this part of the country would recognise it. Alan Sillitoe when he wrote 'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning' - rightly identified as a great film in this book - was conscious that the accents in the film were totally wrong but if they'd been accurate no-one would have understood a word!
Nevermind all that, this book is an extremely well-written tour around parts of the North of England. It had the effect of making me want to visit some of the places mentioned and revisit others. I last went to Durham 20 years ago and want to go back. The author's dead right when he says that if the city was in the South it would receive much, much more attention.
With that example alone, I think Mr. Maconie makes his point. There is a Southern if not 'bias' but perspective in much of our media. As he says at the outset, the BBC doesn't have 'South of England' correspondent. Nuff said.
Cheers, Stuart, I'll look up your other books.
Very good read February 19, 2007
Kieran Mcghee (London, UK)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
I used to love reading Stuart Maconies articles in the NME many years ago when I was a burgeoning musician. Then I enjoyed his wry observations on just about anything and everything in the various '100 Best etc etc' shows over the last 5 years or so. But I loved this and read the whole thing in one setting.
I know various reviewers in the press accuse Maconie of hypocrisy, in lampooning southerners while complaining that northerners are treated similarly by them. But that is a very small part of this book and should in no way detract from what is a warm and affectionate tribute to the famous (Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds & Newcastle) to the forgotten. The overwhelming feeling at the end is to visit all of these places.
Though, my one criticism is Maconies coverage of West Cumbria, an area he describes as apolitical. Until fairly recently the UK's longest ever strike was recorded there in the 60's and also Oranges marches are banned from one particular town after riots and killings there at the start of the 20th century.
Apart from minor errors though, worth buying.
Fantastic stuff... April 23, 2007
Doc Windage (Darwen, Lancs.)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
As a Lancastrian currently "on location" in the south, I found the book humourous, surprisingly educational, fascinating and, most importantly in a book of this genre, down-right enjoyable. All-too-frequently, books whose subject matter tickles the Partisan's fancy descend into biased, stereotypical rants but Stuart Maconie's effort is the polar opposite of that. As an ex-native of Old Trafford, it would have been easy to sneer at the insights into Liverpool and Leeds but Maconie writes in such a way as to dissolve prejudices and instill a desire to actually visit and learn more about those places. Of course there are parts that I disagree with but that's another plus for the book, you'll find yourself nodding to one opinion but slightly frowning at another but that's where Maconie achieves his aim, you think about and subsequently establish your own personal identity with the north! Excellent stuff!
Will southerners enjoy this book? Yes, if they read it in the manner in which it was written. It shouldn't be read in a defensive mind-set (see G Holter above who rather misses the point of Maconie's playful dig at the Millennium Bridge having to close after 2 days because it was wobbling (hence Wobbly Bridge) ), but enjoyed in a way in which all folk familiar with Maconie's work will be accustomed.
I couldn't put it down and was genuinely gutted to finish it.
Northern Soul September 18, 2007
Mrs. C. J. Walker (Lancashire, UK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Anyone who has listened to Stuart Maconie on the radio or TV will read this book and hear his accent and the way he rambles on throughout what is, let's face it, just the sort of book many of us would love to write about home. Being from Lancashire has coloured my view of this book but had I been born in Kent or Caithness, I would like to think that I would have still enjoyed it in the same way I enjoyed Bill Bryson's "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" and "The Lost Continent" while "Notes from a Small Island" is my favourite by the same logic.
Stuart Maconie acknowledges his petty prejudices against rugby union and the lack of babbies yeds in southern chip shops and uses his own frames of reference (football and music generally) to try to express why he likes where he comes from. But this doesn't limit the book's appeal.
Wherever you come from, if you find yourself heading towards northern England, read this book on the Virgin Pendolino or on during the inevitable M6 traffic jam. Watch out for the lines that will draw attention from your fellow travellers to your snorts of laughter or make you choke on your, erm, skinny latte or bruschetta (overworked the food/coffee stuff a bit Stu).
OK there are a few "senior moments" in it, but I believe they were of the honest type that we all make every day (well, I do anyway...).
For myself, this was a book about my home patch too, from someone of my age, recognising a few shared traits along the way (the Wainwrights on the shelf beside the computer and the pie crumbs on the keyboard giving me away a bit). I enjoyed every page - twice - before hanging it on a nail in t'privvy.
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