Found - a newspaper novel from my boyhood

After 35 years I have managed to track down a copy of Clancy by Frederick Mullally (at Amazon for 1p). When I was 19, it was a novel that was instrumental in confirming I wanted to be a journalist. I remember Clancy as a principled hack struggling through Fleet Street while having numerous dalliances with sultry women. Just the job I was looking for. It became a TV series in the 70s called Looking for Clancy with Robert Powell as the lead - and I remember one particularly dramatic scene when he discovered his lover's husband was watching him perform through a false mirror. I can't really remember much more but will read it and post a review on the ever-growing list of novels based on newspapers. Other additions include Russell Wiley Is Out To Lunch by Richard Hine (Amazon Encore) recommended by David Kernek. David, a former editor of four daily titles, says: "You'll find much of it all too familiar - clueless publishers, declining circulations, 15-year-old management consultants, endless cuts etc." A dry satire of the particular hell that is newspaper publishing right now. Doesn't sound the kind of book to inspire 19-year-old students that the future lies in newspapers - but a must-read nonetheless.

Newspaper novel list gets longer

The list of recommended novels based on newspapers is growing like topsy. Thanks to Terry Ramsey, formerly of The Northern Echo and Evening Standard, for his excellent list. Terry writes: "I can't pretend to have read them all, but it makes a pretty decent reading list for a prolonged holiday (or freelancing, as I prefer to call it)". David Kernek has also added to his original suggestions with this email: "I can also recommend The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter (Penguin), in which the mismanagement and decline of regional newspapers is featured hilariously, along with the bastards who fucked the banking industry and the property markets. It's set in the States, but it - as they say - resonates here." Review here. Mike Watson also recommends A Crooked Sixpence by Murray Sayle (good background at Gentleman Ranters). He says "GR is also currently recommending The Street of Disillusion by Harry Procter, but that's a memoir rather than a novel". Our full list is on our recommended reading page. Keep them coming. 

Newspaper novels worth a look

Further to my comments on the books by Tom Rachman and Brian Page, my old colleague David Kernek wrote to say how much he had enjoyed Brian's novel and that he would look up the Imperfectionists. He added: "Other novels I'd rate as classics of the genre (apart from Scoop, of course) are Towards the End of Morning (Michael Frayn) and Don't Print My Name Upside Down (Michael Green) - both from the 60s."

Towards the End of the Morning was one of the first books I read after becoming a journalist in the late 70s and it provided a warning that newspapers were not the glamorous place I then believed them to be. Will add the Michael Green book to my 'to do' to my list. Any others? Send me your recommendations and I will draw up a reading list.