In Search of England

by Roy Hattersley

Passionate, affectionate and indefatigably curious, In Search of England makes a journey around the English countryside and character. England is the most various of countries; within its borders, life changes mile on mile. Roy Hattersley celebrates crumbling churches and serene Victorian architecture, magnificent hills and wind-whipped coast, our music, theatre and local customs, and, above all, the quirky good humour and resilience of England's denizens. In Search of England is an unapologetic love story, a paean of praise for all the fascinating variety and flavour of England's places and people.

Genres: Travel

354 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Roy Sydney George Hattersley, British Politian and author.

Reviews

[David McGrogan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. It takes a while to get used to the rather unique cadences of Hattersley's prose style; he has a way of talking his way in a series of gradually narrowing concentric circles around the subject of his essay until only finally closing in on it at the end. He also has an elusive tendency of slipping suddenly from one topic to another profoundly different one without warning, often in the middle of a paragraph, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. At times this predilection comes dangerously close to producing sheer non-sequiturs. But as you read on it all begins to click, and by the end I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It's not a masterpiece. But it is a diverting and thought-provoking collection of essays by a very thoughtful and intellectually curious man.

[Steven Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Still searching

[Neil · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t like collections

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

My mother and father had literature sewn up between them. My mother knew that the Romantic poets wrote about how beautiful nature was and someone had once told my father that "Shakespeare never wasted a word." From them we acquired a distorted but favourable view of literature as something of a gold standard. Something to look up to and something you can use to impress people with. What we didn't get from them was any understanding of Shakespeare, or Gray or Pope or Shelley ("A puff who threw himself into the oggin" WJ). Reading Hattersley reminds me of this introduction to culture. His source material could be potted into 10 general knowledge questions on University Challenge. His facts are often wrong, mis-quoted, misunderstood or mistaken. Yet he puts behind his limited understanding the sort of know-all gravitas that is supposed to carry truth. It's an empty vehicle in this case.
I have alot of shared interests with the pontificator. These interests are dimmed by his discourse. Except on dogs. Suddenly he is writing about something he knows about rather than something he has learned from someone else or from the equivalent of the Brook Bond collection of Saxon ploughmen poets.
It perhaps wasn't fair to read him within a week of finally completing JB Priestley's English Journey. On the surface they have much in common. One is a Yorkshireman of erudition and eloquence who is able to see what is there and relate it to his wider understanding of the world. The other is Roy Hattersley.

[Stuart Estell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best described as charming. I saw Hattersley at the Hay festival in 2010 talking about the thought behind this anthology of essays, and he's as jolly, warm and perceptive on the page as he is in the flesh. Heartily recommended.