The Working Class Library

In this special spooky Halloween episode of the Working Class Library, Adelle Stripe joins hosts Claire Malcolm and Richard Benson to argue about whether Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel Dracula is actually all about… class.

For the ninth episode of the Working Class Library, the writer and campaigner Terri White joins Richard Benson and Claire Malcolm to talk about the legendary Catherine Cookson. We focus on Cookson’s 1968 novel about a mixed-ethnicity marriage in 1920s Tyneside, but also talk a lot about the author herself, and her phenomenal popularity among working-class women readers in the late 20th century.

For the eighth episode of the Working Class Library, the globally bestselling author Lee Child joins hosts Richard Benson and Claire Malcolm to talk about Dreda Say Mitchell’s groundbreaking 2004 novel Running Hot.

In this episode of the Working Class Library, David Peace joins Claire Malcolm, Chief Executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss David Storey’s classic, controversial 1960 kitchen-sink novel, This Sporting Life.

This Sporting Life, said The Guardian, “provided one of the great energising shocks of the 1960s, a blast of energy smashing at the dullness, complacency and hypocrisy of class-ridden Britain.” Written by Storey when he was still a professional rugby league player, it is a story of frustrated sexual relationships, money, power and celebrity, set in the dark, smoky world of rugby league in the industrial North. In 1963, Lindsay Anderson turned it into a film starring Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts, who were nominated for Oscars. Storey wrote the screenplay. Book and film are now recognised as classics.

David Peace grew up a few miles from where Storey had lived in Wakefield and, of course, has written extensively about sport and class in the industrial North, most recently with his novel Munichs. He joins Claire and Richard in the studio to consider This Sporting Life’s enduring appeal and what it means to him as a novelist. David also talks about how encouraging it was to know that writers such as Storey, John Braine, Stan Barstow and Keith Waterhouse had come from working-class communities local to his parental home.

In the sixth episode of the Working Class Library, Kevin Barry joins Claire Malcolm, chief executive of New Writing North, and Richard Benson, editor of The Bee, to discuss Frank McCourt’s 1996 memoir Angela’s Ashes.

McCourt’s account of his poverty-stricken childhood in New York and Limerick has sold ten million copies to date, and has been translated into more than 25 languages. Previously reluctant to believe anyone would be interested in the story of a poor family, the former schoolteacher waited until he was in his 60s to write and publish the book. As Kevin Barry explains, the scale of its success, and perhaps its false association with the 'misery memoir' genre, can obscure the brilliance of McCourt’s craft. In their discussion, recorded live at Hexham Book Festival, Kevin, Claire and Richard set it firmly in the Irish literary firmament.

Kevin provides special insight into the Irish setting of the story, as he reveals that his father knew the McCourts, and even went to the same school – Leamy’s – where young Frank was educated. At the end, we ask if it deserves a place on the shelves of our imaginary library of great books by and about ordinary people.