Product Description

The streets of London resonate with secret stories, from East End lore to Cold War espionage, from tales of riots, rakes, brothers, anarchy and grisly murders, to Rolling Stones gigs, gangland drinking dens, Orwell's Fitzrovia and Lenin's haunts. Ed Glinert has walked the city from Limehouse to Lambeth, Whitehall to Whitechapel, unravelling its mysteries along the way. This is London as you have never seen it before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20109 in Books
• Published on: 2004-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
"'One of those books, destined to be read until they fall apart, that map the unmappable and make it live' Ian Sinclair."

About the Author
Ed Glinert was born in Dalston. He is the author of The Literary Guide to London and The London Compendium and leads a variety of walking tours around London. His fascination with people and place, coupled with his forensic gift for digging out obscure stories is perfectly suited to this uniquely intriguing subject.

Customer Reviews

Essential Reading - guidebook to Iain Sinclair's London
This is an excellent book. I've taken it on many a London adventure and it never fails to shed light on forgotten corners of the city. If you like Iain Sincliar, Stewart Home, Peter Ackroyd et al and decide to go and see it for yourself Glinert will show you the way. This book is at its strongest when describing areas of London that you feel you may already know, like Clerkenwell, Fleet Street, Bloomsbury, Temple.
The only downside is the ommission of the outer suburbs, so areas such as the Lea Valley, Epping Forest, Harrow, Stonebridge Park, Crouch End etc. don't get a look in. But this is the nearest you're going to get to the great London books of the 1920's-1950's (Clunn, Maxwell, Kent, Fletcher).

Excellent
I have lived in London all my life and this little gem of a book has told me many wonderful stories that I didn't know. Basically the book is divided up into areas / streets in London. You look up where you're going and in an instant you have a clearly written guide to the streets history - what it's best known for - famous folks who have lived there. And it's small enough to carry around. Lovely.

Capital understatement
It would be an ambitious writer who would claim to give a "street-by-street exploration" of London. Whilst Ed Glinert gives a valiant attempt, he must by definition fail to live up to everyone's expectations.

I lived there once and return now and then, so I have a reasonable grasp of the place. And yes I did learn some things about some people in some places. But Glinert's London is not my London. The People Index at the end shows the usual suspects - kings and queens - having the greatest number of references, but there is also a large number of references to 1960s culture. And indeed, the subject index gives away Mr Glinert's true interests, where art and rock music vie for prime position with gangsters and murders. He seems to have a fascination for his (misspent?) youth where the Kray twins regularly pop up alongside fashion and rock venues. So, although the book, does have merit, it's not my chosen guide to "the hidden metropolis".

PS. The section on the river Thames does not really work. In any future edition the features described should be absorbed into the geographical area sections.