The Patrick Hamilton Appreciation Society discussion

What are you reading? Or what have you just read?


Would you recommend it?

I've just finished...


Who They Was (2020) by Gabriel Krauze

From the book’s visceral opening scene, the reader is plunged into the heart of London street life where aggression, death, drug dealing, and violent crimes, are a feature of everyday life. It’s not for the feint hearted. The whole experience feels tense and authentic. If I could have, I would have read it in one go. It’s hard to put down.

Stunning. I loved it.

It's on the Booker shortlist. I hope it wins.

Here’s my five star review

5/5

Last night I finished Throw Me to the Wolves (2020) by Patrick McGuinness


I was completely blown away by this novel

Review here...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

5/5

I’m taking a gamble posting this here, as I can’t find a natural home for it…

I know that there are Francis Spufford fans among us, and following the audible treat that was Radio 4’s dramatisation of his latest book Light Perpetual a few months ago, I’ve dived into Golden Hill.

Further good news is that Spuffo himself will be the guest, answering reader questions about Golden Hill, on this month’s Radio 4 Book Club, chaired by my fellow Keith Grammar School alumnus, Aberdeen FC fan and Dickensian, Jim Naughtie.

Public service broadcasting at its best. Hosannahs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006...

Golden Hill is a gem. I have another one on the shelf. Thanks David. I'll tune in....

It seems like a lifetime ago - going to work, unmasked on public transport, the 18 bus service still running a route convenient to industrial estate commuters, listening on iPod rather than Bluetooth streaming - that I was thrilled by the BBC’s Books and Authors’ working class writing podcast.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...

It introduced James Clarke’s The Litten Path, one that I’d be saving from any inferno, but guest Lisa Blower’s magnificently-titled and genitively-accurate It’s Gone Dark Over Bill’s Mother’s was also lauded.

A copy arrived last week, and I have dipped a tentative toe into its Potteries-based contents. My oh my oh my.

Like The Hollow In The Land, this is a collection of short stories “dominated by the working-class matriarch”, full of “characters with stories they wouldn’t want told” with shades of Alan Bennett and David Constantine, says the blurb. Thus far I have only read Barmouth, a grimy tale of full-Thatcherite 80s against a backdrop of caravan holidays in a grim Welsh resort.

I’m taking this one tale at a time, savouring every phoneme.

Sounds wonderful David. Thanks


Still got my copy of Litten Path unread. Need to change the status soon.