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Books on London


willoyd

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One of my favourite subjects is the history of London, my home city.  As I've recently been started reading around the subject again, I though I'd start a topic on the subject rather than posting individual topic reviews on each book, and thus also allow space for anybody else with books or questions to get stuck in.  Here are the first couple of reviews, both copied over from my topic on the Reading Blog thread:
 
Underground, Overground by Andrew Martin ****
The writer, also author of the Jim Stringer series of railway based detective mysteries, obviously has a passion for railways, and it shines through throughout this history of the London Underground.  Full of fascinating stories and information, it is quite a personal take, but, having read one or two others, it appears pretty sound historically, and is certainly one of the most readable: this is very much a conversation with the reader rather than a formal 'history'. I thoroughly enjoyed it, which was certainly a relief after a string of disappointing novels.  A good, solid, four stars.
 
I've also read and enjoyed Christian Wolmar's The Subterranean Railway.  This is a bit more of a formal history, less conversational in style, but more detailed.  Wolmar is a recognised authority and avid writer on railways, and his assurance shows through.  Another one I'd recommend.

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Bankside by David Brandon and Alan Brooke ***
This is a history of this part of Southwark, in south London, and a fascinating area it is too (made all the more so for me by the fact that I was born close by, and that I bought it having just visited the area for the umpteenth time). The book itself is an interesting read, filling in a lot of the holes in my knowledge of the area, anything but dry - indeed it has quite a personal feel to it, the authors not being without a sense of humour!
Chapters are themed rather than chronological, focusing on different aspects of the district: religious buildings in one, crime and punishment in another literary connections and theatres in yet another, inns providing the focus for another, and so on. This has the advantage of providing a ready focus for each chapter, and the opportunity to draw thematic connections, but it did mean that the strong chronology sometimes became obscured, and there were several instances of duplication (yes, we know The Globe was destroyed by fire, you've told us twice already....). It also meant that some chapters became a bit listy: we've dealt with one church, so let's just move on to the other, and then a third, and so on.
Those caveats aside, this is a well-written, entertaining history of one of the most interesting areas of London, from which I learned much, and which will provide a useful and readily accessible source of information when I come to check something up. If you are anything but an expert on this area and want to find out more about it, this is well worth a read.

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  • 4 months later...

Circle Line by Steffan Hughes **

 

Unlike one of my earlier reads, not a book about the Underground! Instead, this is an account of the author's clockwise journey by small boat round London, via the Thames and various canals. Travel books through London or on the inland waterways? They are pretty crowded markets, so it needs something special to make a book on the same topic worthwhile, and the combination, rather more unusual, seems to provide that opportunity. Initially, Hughes, a sailing journalist, appears to be making the most of it. Sadly, it isn't sustained, the end result being somewhat of a letdown.

 

He can certainly write a readable word or two, it's a very easy, pleasantly flowing read, but what soon becomes apparent is that not an awful lot of the book is about the journey, especially the 'inland' section. This is underlined by the chapter on the section from Paddington to Victoria Park. Right across the 'top' of central London, in one short chapter?!

 

So what does he write about then? First of all, it's heavily biased towards the sections on the Thames, but then he openly professes to not really being into canals (not perhaps the strongest suit to play when half your journey is on them). Secondly, he's constantly diverting off to other journeys he's made at various different times, not always even in London. And even when he does concentrate on the journey in hand, it's all rather vague and wishy-washy. There's just no depth whatsoever.

 

So a book about a journey round London? Well, sort of. It was a pleasantish read, some of the people he met were interesting, but at the end I got very little feel for where he'd actually been, especially those sections off the Thames. Having cycled much of those same canals, I certainly couldn't make much of a connection, largely because there was so little there. Disappointing just about sums it up, leaving me rather bemused at the fact that 15 out of 20 reviewers on Amazon gave it 5 stars. Was this really such a great book for three-quarters of the reviewers to give it the maximum score? Grade inflation with a vengeance!

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Walk the Lines by Mark Mason ***

Another in the growing list of eccentric travelogues, where the traveller decides to pursue a particular theme. Here, the author walks the routes of all the London Underground lines over a period of six months, from high summer to midwinter. Mostly, he walks them alone, taking between one and three days for each route, although he does have company for some stretches, including an epic trip pubcrawling round the Central Line. Other variants include following the Jubilee line overnight.

So many of this genre strike me as highly contrived - an excuse to write a book rather than a reason. Almost as many are written in an attempt to be funny at the expense of those they encounter, failing miserably in the process (the worst offender I've come across, mainly because of the sheer volume he's produced, is Tim Moore). Whilst the idea is unusual, indeed it might seem very odd to some, this time IMO, there is neither contrivance nor false humour, more an honest attempt to see London, and its Underground network, from a different angle. There is some degree of achievement here too!

An honest attempt it may be, an interesting and very readable account it certainly is: the author sustains a straightforward, engaging style, which keeps one rolling, feeding off a variety of fascinating snippets. Yet, in spite of my fascination with London, and the attractiveness of the theme, it never totally grabbed me.

I think the problem was twofold. Firstly, it was a bit sporadic, with whole sections of some lines (particularly in the second half of the book) skimmed over at a rapid rate, as if the author was more anxious to finish than to tell us the story (maybe reflecting his feelings on the walk?). In particular, it felt somewhat biased towards central London (I suppose that's almost inevitable, it may even not be true, but it did feel a bit unbalanced). Secondly, I was not overly enamoured with some of his assumptions and offers of opinion: not so much the opinions (although some did irk me, we're all entitled to them!), more the cut and dried tenor of them. On several occasions, I found myself wanting to interrupt and point out an alternative. Let's just say that I didn't find myself completely in tune on occasions!

Overall though it was an enjoyable, sometimes enlightening, almost always easy read, which did leave me wanting to explore some sections of his routes for myself, and I liked his writing sufficiently to acquire a copy of his more recent book Move Along Please.

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Swimming to Heaven by Iain Sinclair ****
 

This is a short little tome, barely sixty pages long, subtitled 'The Lost Rivers of London', based on a talk Iain Sinclair gave in 2009 and published by The Swedenborg Society as part of a series of short essays. In Sinclair's usual digressive way, it looks at how these rivers, even after their 'disappearance', still influence the urban landscape and the narratives derived from it. Inevitably, being as short as it is, it doesn't dive in as deeply as the subject could merit, but it's written beautifully, and provides some fascinating nuggets, particularly in linking various disparate events together.

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Hi Willoyd I have only just spotted this thread but am very interested in the first book you listed - Underground, Overground. I have only briefly lived in London but I'm fascinated by the underground. I'm not entirely sure what that says about me...

 

Anyway, definitely one for the wishlist.

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