The Oxford Book Club - Patrick Neale - 3rd January 2017

Available for over a year

David is joined by Patrick Neale from Jaffe & Neale Bookshop in Chipping Norton. They discuss the enduring charm of book tokens, and Patrick's new shop in Stowe. David has bought and started reading Patrick's first recommendation, based on his email earlier in the day telling us what he'd be bringing along tonight. Dodgers, by Bill Beverly, is a first novel that is a mix of "The Wire, Odysseus and Grapes of Wrath backwards". It's about four black gang members who leave LA to travel to Wisconsin to murder a witness who can sink their boss. "A page turner from the very first word". Francis Spufford's Golden Hill is "about Brexit as much as it is about the maelstrom of 18th Century America". It tells the story of an Englishman who arrives in New York in 1746 with a credit note for £1,000 - can he succeed in this mad melting pot town? And Patrick's third recommendation is The Dig by Cynan Jones - "a wholly unique story about bereavement and badger baiting".