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Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North

Author: Stuart Maconie
Publisher: Ebury Press
Category: Book

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

42 reviews
Sales Rank: 621

Media: Paperback
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1

ISBN: 0091910234
EAN: 9780091910235
ASIN: 0091910234

Publication Date: February 7, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW and promptly despatched.

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•	Paperback - Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North

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Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars

Didn't finish it... May 13, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I have been accused of "laughing at anything" and enjoy many different forms of comedy, but this book didn't even raise a slight titter. Oh, by the way, I come from the North East and there are plenty of crap chip shops up here too. Overall though I couldn't finish the book as I was irritated by his pompous, vague and shallow outlook on life in both the North and South of England. I personally think it is hard to differentiate between the 'North' and 'South' nowadays as people move around so much; hence the old fashioned stereotypes are few and far between.

1 out of 5 stars

Maybe I didn't find this funny because I'm not from Lancaster? May 8, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I have to disagree with almost every other reviewer: this book wasn't funny. It had none of the wit of Bill Bryson, to whom the author was compared, or Peter Kay, whose quotation was featured on the cover. It just rambled on and on about how the author didn't really know much about the South except that it's definitely not as good as the North and the chips are crap. If he only knows London and one part of Essex (I think it was Essex, might have been Sussex) that he stayed in with an ex, how on earth is he supposed to write a book about the North/South divide? From peeking at these reviews it seems he only knows a few places in the North well.

I always judge these books on whether, when reading about the places I've been to, I can relate to the cliches mentioned and laugh. I didn't laugh once at this book - oh, except where he said Northerners come from hard and dangerous places and Southerners think it's "edgy" to live in Hackney, displaying a lack of knowledge of London and indeed the definition of the word edgy - and having lived in London all my life I was sorely disappointed at his watery, vague description of the place. It didn't make fun of the strange things Londoners do or talk about the cliches centred on us. It was just vague whining about the Tube not being as good as Norther rail lines.

Northerners and Southerners alike should use this book as toilet roll in my opinion.

2 out of 5 stars

Southern slasher! April 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is a good indicator of the state of the North of England today from someone who obviously loves the fact that he was born a northerner. It's worth a read, but in his quest 'in search of the north' he comes across as very anti-south and anti-southerner, despite the fact that he lives in the West Midlands (which isn't the North of England) and earns his living mostly in London!

4 out of 5 stars

So the North begins at Crewe? April 1, 2008
But take a ruler across the country from Crewe and by Stuart's reckoning Notts and parts of Derbys are also in the North - but he classes them as Midlanders in his book. A minor niggle,but we need to clarify these things!!!!
I think this guy's humour is very entertaining. My only quibble really is that the chapters went on a bit long. My mind started to wander and I wondering when the chapter would end. Overall, though I found it interesting.

2 out of 5 stars

Cynical moneyspinner March 30, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Overall this is a disappointing read - it seemed to me like Maconie had spent a couple of spare weekends to pay desultory visits to a few random Northern towns, filled it in a bit with some notes cribbed out of an A Level social history text, added in some muddled contradictory theories about why the North is better than the South and waited for the royalties to pour in. There are some funny lines and anecdotes but a lot of the writing is erratic and could have done with a firm going over by a decent editor - over and over he makes references then leaves you uncertain to what he's talking about until several paragraphs later. For me the two most irritating parts of this book are these: first, the gall of a man deploring the 'South's' appalling stereotypes for the North while both reinforcing them and furiously churning out his own about Southerners (everyone in the South is called Tarquin apparently). And two, the brass neck of complaining about the media's fascination with London's Millenium Bridge (rather than Newcastle's), his disgust demonstrated in his participating in a media production about the former. Read Simon Armitage's All Points North instead.