BOOK REVIEW: The Pie at Night
by David Hall
By Stuart Maconie, Ebury Press, paperback, £16.99
This is the author’s view of life in the North when it comes to entertainment, food, culture, sport and other matters. But although he has a winsome way with words it is packed with quotes from other sources. By the time I had reached page 13 we had already had quotes from Friedrich Engels, Sigmung Freud, Jerome K. Jerome, Janet Street- Porter and Ken Dodd to mention but a fraction and it continues throughout the 343 pages.
I was also puzzled in the sport section when, highlighting the North at play, he goes to Swindon’s Railway Museum, a Mining Museum in Wales, dog racing in Birmingham and horse racing in Wolverhampton where there are brilliant examples of each in the North.
But he does highlight many northern places of interest in his pages including those in which to eat and be entertained.
His love for the Lake District and a pint is well recorded and he contrasts a game at Spotlands, home of Rochdale, and a couple of games by FC United – one when playing at Bury’s Gigg Lane and the other in their new Broadhurst Park home.
It is certainly entertaining with many northern places of interest you may never have heard of but will want to visit. But it is just a little self-centred.
