| Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North | 
 enlarge | Author: Stuart Maconie
Publisher: Ebury Press
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 720
Media: Paperback
Pages: 354
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 An absolute joy - insightful, witty and informative February 20, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Anyone who has heard Stuart Maconie on the radio will hear him again the instant they read this book. Stuart's relaxed but informative presentation style is echoed in these pages. When he reveals he was a college lecturer in Skelmersdale, that partly explains his zeal to pass on unlikely snippets of knowledge, such as the fact that LS Lowry allowed a five-year-old to add to one of his paintings.
Leaving revered artists of the past aside, most importantly, the book is bang up to date. Those who have seen the revamped and revitalised city centres of Leeds and Newcastle - or, rather, NewcastleGateshead -will recognise them in the descriptions here.
The book does contain some highly personal views that not all will agree with, but they make wonderful quotes: "Pride was an awkward character that the Thatcher experiment was supposed to eradicate from the north, along with hope, joy and security. Nice to see that it failed." (In Leeds, that is.)
Pies and Prejudice has its laugh - out - loud moments evocative of the best of Bill Bryson that all will enjoy, but those who know the areas described will as likely find themselves nodding agreement. Bryson found himself made Chancellor of Durham University for his lyrical descriptions of the beauty of Durham City. Maconie echoes them, but with the very accurate summary that "if Durham were in Kent or Sussex we would never hear the last of it... Climbing .. onto Palace Green is like stepping out of the north of chips, pies and draught bitter into an episode of Brother Cadfael."
This should be treasured not only as a travel book, but as a snapshot of social history, to be quoted in dissertations a hundred years hence. Maconie not only found the North in his searches, he has captured its essence perfectly. On this evidence he is indeed, as described on the book's jacket, "An heir to Alan Bennett."
 Upper Crust! February 12, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an urbane, witty and clever book that explores "Northerness" means ... or rather what "Northern Englishness" means.
I found it fascinating but wished Maconie had hopped north of the border to juxtapose the view of Scots to "oop norf" with those "dan sarf". ( I did at times say "being patronised by the Londoncentric media ... try living in Scotland, pal!" while reading it.)
(I was studying in Glasgow a few years ago and I overheard a middle-class southern girl ask a friend "do THEY like dogs". I resisted the urge to butt in and say "only when there is an "r" in the month." To this girl everything north of Oxford is a suburb of Mordor.)
Maconie's thesis is simple :- regionalism is rife in the worlds of media, politics and business; this leads to a small-minded southern mind-set and a reactionary northern response.
Maconie's most accurate and deservedly cruel lunge is at the media's obsession with London and the Home Counties. He is also commendably and unfashionably unafraid to bring in social class into his discussion.
(Notice how "Q.I." is always at pains not to patronise the developing world but Stephen Fry can label Scots as drunken yobs and Northerners as provincial.)
Some may be dissapointed by its middlebrow muddle:- is this a funny serious book or a serious funny book ? But that is to overlook the book's strength that you learn a lot without feeling you are being lectured at.
It does have its flaws though, primarily a feel of a sense of resentment towards the South rather than a real anger at the North's neglect by Northerners. In addition, while I sung "Ding dong, the Witch is Dead" when Thatcher resigned, I think Maconie's left-wing political views are as carefully though out as and, as predictable, as a reactionary, right-wing retired stockbroker's from Surrey.( Oops, that was a regional stereotype.) Yes, Maconie savages Militant ruled Liverpool but, all too often, north of the Watford gap self-interested, self serving rogues are voted in precisely because they wear a red rosette just as blue rosette wearing clowns like Boris Johnson are in the south. Yes, the Thatcherite era did lead to a savage and deliberate decimation of the British working class but the left showed an unforgivable lack of vision and leadership that made them vulnerable to old "milksnatcher".
But Maconie isn't a sentimentalist:- the North isn't porttrayed as perfect ... just as a neglected part of the UK with its own charm.
But overall, ecky thump! It' s reet champion, ower kid.I'm off to walk my whippet.
(Sorry, lads & lasses!)
 Half-hearted research, a dislike of the South and a few nice stories February 4, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Right, I have just finished the book. I enjoyed parts of it. But there were two elements that annoyed me. First, it didn't seem like he actually bothered to visit some of these places and if he did it was an afternoon here, a morning there. Nice stories about places but they can be easily copied from 'A History of ________'. Second, it seems more like a book about why he doesn't like the South rather than an ode to the North. His constant and bitter moaning about (a) why the South is over-rated and (b) how Southerners are disparaging to Northerns really does grate after a while.
Eeeh, lad, you've made us reet proud February 2, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Are you from the North? Read this book - you'll recognise snippets from your own life on every single page. Are you from the South? Read this book - it's about time you heard the truth about how equally wonderful we are!
This book is a hilarious, evocative, perceptive love-letter to the North, and a must-read for all who wish to be educated!
 Prejudice and Prejudice January 16, 2008
7 out of 19 found this review helpful
I'm a Londoner, let's get that out of the way. I'm engaged to an amazing Lancashire girl and have spent a great deal of time in the North and with it's peoples. I purchased this book expecting and hoping to read a witty and well thought out view of perhaps some of the nuances and reasons for those nuances (or not) between Southerners and Northerners. Let's face it, there clearly are some differences. Instead, what I was incensed to discover was that this narrow minded bore is only intent on generalising and slighting all things South of the Midlands and time and time again, criticising anything and everything that is London. I'm seriously confused as to how this little man walks straight with such an enormous chip on his shoulder.
Please, let us not burden you any longer sir, the Norf is calling you back.
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