# Books set in Wales



## Zadie06 (May 10, 2006)

I've recently been through a phase of reading books set in Wales:

_Eve Green_ by Susan Fletcher [Teifi Valley] - very evocative of the place
_The land as viewed from the sea_ by Richard Collins [Aberystwyth/Aberdovey] - ditto
_The shop_ by Emyr Humphreys [north Wales] - deadly dull
_Aberystwyth mon amour_ by Malcolm Pryce - really tried to like it, but failed miserably

Anyone got any recommendations?


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## s.norbury (May 10, 2006)

The Bible was originally set in South Wales


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## Zadie06 (May 10, 2006)

Eh?


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## llantwit (May 10, 2006)

That's true. Moses was a welshman.


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## cyberfairy (May 10, 2006)

Grits..i think tis called by Niall Grithiffs is might fine and set all around Wales-features lots of crusties and drugs but the accents take a while to get used to reading..sort of like Trainspotting in the hills but with more varied collequaliasms to get your head around


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## King Biscuit Time (May 10, 2006)

s.norbury said:
			
		

> The Bible was originally set in South Wales



I knew that we had the original Bethlehem. Screw that middle-eastern wannabee


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## ddraig (May 10, 2006)

cyberfairy said:
			
		

> Grits..i think tis called by Niall Grithiffs is might fine and set all around Wales-features lots of crusties and drugs but the accents take a while to get used to reading..sort of like Trainspotting in the hills but with more varied collequaliasms to get your head around



ooh, didn't know bout that! ta


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## Karac (May 10, 2006)

A couple of books ive enjoyed in the past year
Sugar and slate-tho mainly set in Africa-but a bit of North Wales





A bit more political but totally set in Wales-No Halfway House


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## Techno303 (May 10, 2006)

Kingsley Amis ‘Old Devils’


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## Brockway (May 11, 2006)

_Sheepshagger_ by Niall Griffiths is the best Welsh-set book to come out in donkeys' years.
_Cardiff Dead _by John Williams is good too. Ska, surfing, Cardiff - what more could you want?
_My People _by Caradoc Evans is a nasty motherfucker of a book.
_The Dark Daughters _by Rhys Davies if you can get your hands on a second-hand copy is a gothic masterpiece. 
_The Hiding Place _by Trezza Azzopardi is a brilliant piece of urban gothic.
Just read Tristan Hughes' _Send My Cold Bones Home _set on Anglesey which I thought was really good. Another gothic book.


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## Gavin Bl (May 11, 2006)

King Biscuit Time said:
			
		

> I knew that we had the original Bethlehem. Screw that middle-eastern wannabee



From the lost city of Bedlinog apparently.


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## Ben Bore (May 11, 2006)

Older novels or modern one's set in the past:

Rape of the fair Country, first of a trillogy of books by Alexander Cordell set in Blaenafon/Pontypwl area during the industrial revolutionl. 

Pestilence, a translation of a Welsh novel, following a geezer from north west going off to the crusade and a young Arab sent on a mission to assasinate the pope (the French one).  It's really dark, but one of the best novels I've read.


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## RubberBuccaneer (May 11, 2006)

I've always wondered how John Williams books would stand up for people who weren't familliar with Cardiff?

I liked trying to guess who the characters were based on, and can remember the Prince of Wales, etc, so there's a bit of a nostalgia trip there.

But are they good on their own?

p.s. in one book it mentions a bomb placed by the bridge from town towards Bute St. Is this based on any truth???


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## Zadie06 (May 11, 2006)

Ben Bore said:
			
		

> Rape of the fair Country, first of a trillogy of books by Alexander Cordell set in Blaenafon/Pontypwl area during the industrial revolutionl.



Oh yes, I'd forgotten about his books. And I've just remembered _On the black hill. _


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## Donna Ferentes (May 11, 2006)

Did Raymond Williams not write some novels set in Wales?


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## CharlieAddict (May 11, 2006)

people of the black mountains - raymond williams.
sheepshagger - nial griffiths.
boy - roald dahl.


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## Karac (May 11, 2006)

Donna Ferentes said:
			
		

> Did Raymond Williams not write some novels set in Wales?


"Border Country"-not read it tho-supposed to be good


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## meurig (May 12, 2006)

Ben Bore said:
			
		

> Older novels or modern one's set in the past:
> 
> Rape of the fair Country, first of a trillogy of books by Alexander Cordell set in Blaenafon/Pontypwl area during the industrial revolutionl.



Seconded, also very illuminating to first flush of adolsescence teenagers who thought by reading it they'd only be enlargin their minds.


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## Udo Erasmus (May 12, 2006)

There was a militant communist in the 1930s, called Lewis Jones, who wrote the Welsh "Grapes of Wrath", two novels called "Cwmardy" and "We live" that are absolutely amazing.  I read them both in one sitting, the action was so compelling.


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## cymrukid (May 12, 2006)

No 'Carrie's War'???


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## Zadie06 (May 13, 2006)

I'm well impressed at all the responses. I'd expected no replies to a lurker who crawled out of the woodwork.  

You've given me loads of ideas, thanks. Anyone read any of my suggestions?


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## davesgcr (May 13, 2006)

Not forgetting the perennial inter war book "How Green was my Valley" .....


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## Karac (Sep 19, 2008)

Apols for dredging up an old thread but..




Everything must change by Graham Davies-originally written in Welsh
One of the best books ive read in years-it intersperses the life of a Welsh Langage campaigner with a French Trotskyist-trust me its better than it sounds
The weird thing is my dad gave it to me
He must be softening in his old age


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## butchersapron (Sep 19, 2008)

Cwmardy and We live by Lewis Jones.  Don't miss these. (ah, old thread)


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## Strumpet (Sep 19, 2008)

No idea what kind of books you are into but my mam and a couple of aunties and one cousin love Iris Gower books. All set in Wales, I think.


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## Dhimmi (Sep 19, 2008)

Moby Dick...


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## Karac (Sep 19, 2008)

butchersapron said:


> Cwmardy and We live by Lewis Jones.  Don't miss these. (ah, old thread)


I didnt think much of those books-an idealised tanky history


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## butchersapron (Sep 19, 2008)

Karac said:


> I didnt think much of those books-an idealised tanky history



Of cousre! What more would you expect from a tanky historical overview! But thery still piss on everything ever written by any hampstead empty nester.


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## butchersapron (Sep 19, 2008)

Dhimmi said:


> Moby Dick...



You are banned.


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## Dhimmi (Sep 19, 2008)

butchersapron said:


> You are banned.



Pinocchio?


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## niclas (Sep 19, 2008)

butchersapron said:


> Of cousre! What more would you expect from a tanky historical overview! But thery still piss on everything ever written by any hampstead empty nester.



We Live and Cwmardy aren't subtle - sledgehammer socialist realism - but Lewis Jones was living the struggle in the 30s and brings that struggle to life in his novels.

Stump by Niall Griffiths is also good - another take of his "Scousers in Mid Wales" but still good.


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## llantwit (Sep 19, 2008)

Second vote for he Cardiff Trilogy by John Williams.
Good dirty Cardiff Neo-noir thrillers with decent human characters, and some great gumshoe-style stories.
I think they hold up for non-Cardiffians, but you get more out of them if you're familiar with Cardiff, of course.


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## bendeus (Sep 20, 2008)

Chatwin's 'On the Black Hill'? The fictional farmhouse straddles the border between Radnorshire and Herefordshire, thought the principal characters are Welsh.

Ace book


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## Clint Iguana (Sep 20, 2008)

check out http://www.parthianbooks.co.uk loads of stuff on there (its a welsh publisher)

Try URBAN WELSH... a collection of short stories (from above publisher)

if you like cheap trashy pulp fiction go for A BLOODY GOOD FRIDAY skinheads rioting in merthyr and all that sort of thing.

if you are into music, check out 'Dial M For Merthyr' Rachel Trieze's biography of Midasuno..... the band dont come accross as particularly wild, but it is made up for by the quality of the writing. Rachel's FRESH APPLES is also quite good.

the ultimate rock biography has to be winos rhinos and lunatics, the story of welsh legends MAN, laugh a minute from start to finish... kids these days, dont know what rock and roll means!

i have to endorse what others have said, any thing by Nial Griffiths or the legendary Alexander Cordell

Oh, and someone recently bought me a copy of Merthyr Writing, not had chance to read it yet, but looks interesting


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## davesgcr (Sep 20, 2008)

String of historical fiction books by Jack Jones "Rhondda Roundabout" being one .....(havent seen them for years though)


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## isitme (Sep 20, 2008)

my country is shit by sillyhat shwpshyggggr


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## llantwit (Sep 20, 2008)

isitme said:


> my country is shit by sillyhat shwpshyggggr


twll dy din. /\


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## bendeus (Sep 20, 2008)

isitme said:


> my country is shit by sillyhat shwpshyggggr



0/10


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## isitme (Sep 20, 2008)

this is my nervous breakdown not yours


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## the button (Sep 20, 2008)

The Book of Jonah.


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## isitme (Sep 20, 2008)

Anne Curry - The Humpback Years War


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## the button (Sep 20, 2008)

isitme said:


> Anne Curry - The Humpback Years War



I don't think I've heard of that one. Could you give a fuller cetacean?


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## isitme (Sep 20, 2008)

no


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## topaz (Sep 20, 2008)

Zadie06 said:


> I've recently been through a phase of reading books set in Wales:
> 
> 
> _Aberystwyth mon amour_ by Malcolm Pryce - really tried to like it, but failed miserably



i really liked this myself


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## el_starkos (Sep 22, 2008)

These are good ....

Aberystwyth Mon Amour 
Don't Cry For Me Aberystwyth
Last Tango in Aberystwyth
The Unbearable Lightness of Being in Aberystwyth 

all by Malcolm Pryce. V funny.


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## el_starkos (Sep 22, 2008)

This was good also ....

The Last Llanelli Train


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## Brockway (Sep 22, 2008)

_Swansea Terminal _by Robert Lewis; and _Submarine_ by Joe Dunthorne are excellent. Both novels are set in modern-day Swansea. The first is about a broken down, cancer-ridden, alcoholic PI who ends up having to guard a warehouse full of Harp lager. And the other is about a dysfunctional teenager who at one point attempts to assassinate his GF's dog in order to accustom her to grief.


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## Trufflepig (Sep 23, 2008)

cyberfairy said:


> Grits..i think tis called by Niall Grithiffs is might fine and set all around Wales-features lots of crusties and drugs but the accents take a while to get used to reading..sort of like Trainspotting in the hills but with more varied collequaliasms to get your head around



And due special kudos for referring to my ex-landlord as "that cunt" - cos he was / is.  Read and enjoyed every one by- "the Welsh Irvine Welsh, who is actually a Liverpudlian"  a copy of sheepshagger should sit next to the Gideons bible in every Welsh b+b


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