Interview with Lancashire author Chris Moss
- Denis Peskov
- 22 hours ago
- 6 min read
Chris Moss is a freelance travel writer, editor and author whose work has appeared regularly in The Guardian since 1997. Born in Lancashire in 1966, he worked as a teacher before turning to journalism, writing on travel, culture, music and books. Over the course of his career he has lived in London, Buenos Aires, South Wales and Devon, experiences that have informed his wide-ranging writing. Moss is the author of several books, including a cultural history of Patagonia and guidebooks to a number of countries. His most recent titles are Lancashire: Exploring the Historic County that Made the Modern World and Where Tourists Seldom Tread: Postcards from Bypassed Britain, which grew out of his long-running Guardian column of the same name. Now living near Pendle Hill, Lancashire, Moss has returned to the county of his birth in a book that combines personal rediscovery with an exploration of the region's pivotal role in shaping the modern world.
I met Chris at an event in Manchester, where he presented his last book on Lancashire and provided a glimpse into his coming July work Where Tourists Seldom Tread: Postcards from Bypassed Britain. He kindly agreed to answer my questions on both titles, and to take part in a questionnaire on his reading habits. As a recent Publishing graduate from the MMU, I was especially curious to learn some insights from the actual process of book creation. (And of course I arrived for the meeting sporting Argentina's jersey).
I know you spent a lot of time in libraries, went to explore many places, talked to a number of people. How long did it take you to write this book?
More than three and half years, but only half of my time was ever spent writing the book. I continued to deliver journalism, work on other projects, and also do occasional lecturing and guiding on cultural tours.
How did the recent profusion of titles on the North-West in general and Lancashire in particular (Brian Groom’s works, Lancastrians by Paul Salveson, to name a few) affect your project? When I heard about your book, I thought it’ll be published by Harper North. However, it appeared in a rather modest Old Street Publishing. Or you didn’t want to go with HarperN from the onset?
I didn’t read anything that looked like competition, certainly not anything that’s been published since 2020. I didn’t want the influence. As for the publisher, I was approached by Old Street back in 2021 and never went to other publishers with the project.
Why is there such an abundance of books about the North's culture, economy and history now? Do you think a similar wave could appear about some other English regions? East Anglia, maybe?
The constant churn of books on the North and all the memoirs and history books about cities reflects a surge of localism, in politics and other fields. I am glad I stuck to a single county that is close to my heart. Every region is different. North books seem to focus a lot on the NW and NE, less so on Yorkshire. I wonder why. East Anglia and Lincolnshire are fascinating in their own way, but they are utterly unlike Lancashire and much of the North. Still, books keep appearing on all corners so there must be interest out there. Only London has arguably too many books about it.
How did you determine the number of chapters? Is 10-12 chapters apparently an industry standard?
Maybe it is a sort of standard, though my next book, Where Tourists Seldom Tread, runs to 23 chapters and an epilogue. When a book has around 300 pages, then ten or so chapters of approx 30 pages allows for some depth and means the book doesn’t feel/read like a guidebook or gazetteer. I think it is quite organic though. I sometimes see books with 6-7 longer chapters with a similar overall length.
Why do you think it’s necessary to put quotes before every chapter? Even your first book, on Patagonia, uses them.
No reason. My next book has very few of them. They are merely appetite whetters. Authors tend to avoid too many quotations from current writers at the top of chapters as they can be very costly to use – and epigraphs are the priciest of all.
Did you use only your own photos in the book? How important is it to have them vs. stock/Wiki images? Did the commissioning editor encourage you to take more of your own pictures? Was there an overall limit on the amount of imagery in the book?
Some pictures are mine, many are from image libraries. Wiki and free-to-reprint material only goes so far. The editor never tasked me with producing photos but I take a lot as I was actually a keen photographer long before I became a writer and journalist. No limits were specified beforehand, but budgets have to be managed.
The coming July book on less liked British urban travel destinations - will it feature any bonus chapters/places or it will be strictly based on the ones described in The Guardian?
The coming book is not a reprint of the Guardian columns. The chapters/entries are longer than typical journalistic items so there is space to breathe a bit, think aloud, wonder and wander. There are fewer towns in total in the book, because, again, I wanted it not to be a mere guidebook.
What are your further writing plans? I would definitely like to read a biography of Buenos Aires by you - the city is to Argentina what London is to the UK - practically a different country. City biographies are on the rise recently: not only European (and Indian) ones are getting dedicated tomes, but from a far wider world: Lagos, Mexico-City, Shanghai, Moscow, yet there’s still nothing in English on the largest megapolises of S. America.
I am working up a book on Buenos Aires, which will feature memoir and history, as well as other elements. The market for non-European/US and/or non-colonial cities is probably not huge in the UK, but I don’t care about that. BA is one off then most fascinating capital cities in the world and Argentina is a conundrum for economists as well as historians. I am enjoying the process of taking a mental holiday there as I do my reading and research.
You may be right that London is in danger of becoming a sort of BA - a self-absorbed wealthy mega-capital, sucking the life-blood out of a declining nation. I hope not!
And the Reading Habits:
1. The book I am currently reading?
Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar.
2. My earliest reading memory?
Probably Enid Blyton - Pip, Faraway Tree etc.
3. The book that changed my life or had the greatest influence on me?
Impossible to say, really. Borges’s early poetry matters a lot to me. Martin Amis was my hero in the late 1980s. Kundera in the period before that. Greene and Highsmith in the 1990s. But I have a voracious appetite for books and have just read seven James Bond novels back to back.
4. What’s the last great book I read?
On Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sabato.
5. What’s the most interesting thing I learned from a book recently?
Not from a book but from books – plural. I discovered that books require a mindset. A novel that is boring one day is amazing the next one, when the mind is properly readied.
6. Which subjects do I wish more authors would write about?
Working class men and women, and cats - but not in a cutesy way. They are beautiful but mean.
7. The book I think is most underrated?
All the James Bond novels. Fleming was a brilliant stylist and created his world as completely as, say, Wodehouse.
8. The book that changed my mind/point of view?
Ulysses - it teaches you that anything goes.
9. The book I’m ashamed not to have read?
Perhaps Middlemarch.
10. The book I give as a gift (not written by me)?
The Book of Fame by Lloyd Jones.
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