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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Books on London...

Ganesh

20:55 / 04.07.01

Following from my 'Psychogeography' post in Magick, I'm eager for your suggestions as to what's worth reading on the subject of London - interesting, quirky stuff about its history, geography, 'soul', etc.

Currently reading Gaiman's 'Neverwhere'. Hmm...

Kit-Cat Club

09:12 / 05.07.01

Peter Ackroyd - the big book on London, of course, but his fiction is well worth a look too. Hawksmoor and The House of Doctor Dee are both top-drawer stuff.

Iain Sinclair I found harder to enjoy, but has been recommended by so many people of good judgement that I think I am missing something. Lud Heat, maybe?

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

09:12 / 05.07.01

Thanks, 'Nesh. At the risk of sounding unpopular (a shock as though that may be), I rather like Neverwhere.

Kali, Queen of Kitteh

09:12 / 05.07.01

Just occurred to me how horrible that must sound to all of those over the pond: All I Ever Really Needed to Know About England I Learned from Neil Gaiman.

Ganesh

09:12 / 05.07.01

I'm about quarter of the way through 'Neverwhere' and, despite the occasional lapse into tweeness, I'm really rather enjoying it too.

Michael Moorcock's 'Mother London' next.

ephemerat

09:12 / 05.07.01

Both Only Forward and Spares by Michael Marshall Smith contain strong aspects of London in clever disguise.

The different Neighbourhoods in Only Forward are quite simply London by tube. Step out of the Underground and you’re magically transported to a different place: Marble Arch; Soho; Oxford Circus; Camden; Colour; Cat; Centre; Red…

And as for Spares – consider The Gap… Everywhere you go on the tube (see the signs, hear the announcements) everywhere you look - they warn you: Mind The Gap. Mind The Gap. MIND THE GAP. Why? What is it about The Gap? What kind of lurching horror does The Gap contain? And what if you fell in? Would you ever return?

Um… they probably aren’t particularly useful for finding your way around, however.

grant

14:12 / 05.07.01

The London issue of Granta is excellent. History, psychogeography, praises, complaints, and artists' photos of favorite aspects of london (one or two cityscapes, a few interiors...).

The bit on traffic planning is really, really fascinating. I remember some cool immigration stuff as well.

Check it out...here!

deletia

14:58 / 05.07.01

253 by Geoff Ryman, Slow Chocolate Autopsy by Iain Sinclair..

Um...many more, but brain not working.

Neverwhere . Hmm. Not all you need to know about London. Really not. Still, it kept Hywel Bennet warm through a cold winter, so God Bless It.

Not Here Still

15:25 / 05.07.01

There was a really good graphic novel/story anthology I once saw about London but didn't have the money to buy. It had Gaiman, Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair and loads of others in it and I think it was called It's Dark in London - but I've since seen another graphic novel with the same name that was nowhere near as good, so I may have been confused. It does happen quite often, after all.

Otherwise Sincalir's Lights Out for the Territory is pretty good, and going back a bit, tehre are a few really good William Blake poems about the place as well - ask Richard Ashcroft, who stole one for History by the Verve...

As for Neverwhere, I missed the TV series and the book just seems too difficult to finish for some reason...

Dee Vapr

20:58 / 10.07.01

As a suggestion, I'm reading "Blake" by Peter Ackroyd at the moment, and it's absolutely steeped in London. And William Blake too.The man is virtually the mythic centre of the city. Which is no bad thing.

Christopher Pressler

07:38 / 11.07.01

Two of the great contemporary English novels about London are:

'Sexing the Cherry' - Jeanette Winterson
'London Fields' - Martin Amis

Very different books but breathtaking prose both of them.

Chris
www.christopherpressler.com

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:34 / 11.07.01

quote:Originally posted by Christopher Pressler:
'London Fields' - Martin Amis[/URL]

Purely in the interests of balance, I'd add that this is one of the worst books I have ever read. Trite, hateful trash with cardboard caricature characters and an irritating b-movie plot, which like all Amis' work has been afforded the status of literature purely on the basis of good-old-fashioned nepotism. Look at daddy's little boy laughing at the proles and suburbia. Watch him wank over the female fantasy figure!

Amis = scum.

sleazenation

08:45 / 11.07.01

the comics anthology 'its dark in london'
was the one meantioned earlier in the thread- featurinbg the talents of gaiman moore and a whole load more

Kit-Cat Club

10:22 / 11.07.01

And there's a copy in West End Books up in West Hampstead if you're desperate...

The Return Of Rothkoid

10:41 / 11.07.01

...or on Amazon for £8. (Link)

mondo a-go-go

13:03 / 11.07.01

could never get into either ackroyd or sinclair. yawno.

since reading the thread on the borribles, i have a recollection that these feature quite a bit of london.

dickens' london can be fun.

my mum has piles and piles of books on london, i'll see what else i can dig up.

grant

13:43 / 11.07.01

Wombles books.

The Strobe

15:27 / 11.07.01

quote:Originally posted by De La Zenith is dead:

Purely in the interests of balance, I'd add that this is one of the worst books I have ever read. Trite, hateful trash with cardboard caricature characters and an irritating b-movie plot, which like all Amis' work has been afforded the status of literature purely on the basis of good-old-fashioned nepotism. Look at daddy's little boy laughing at the proles and suburbia. Watch him wank over the female fantasy figure!

Amis = scum.

To be honest, London Fields was the only Amis I truly liked; I thought it was brilliant. Read the Information. *That* is a shite book. I might reread, and try and appreciate further. Amis veers from quite good to awful.

Pin

22:49 / 11.07.01

253 is here. It's very good, this version, I would imagine, is better then the book, though I have't read that, and it'll make underground journeys much more fun...

And Neverwhere kicks arse. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

gman

13:40 / 27.07.01

Read this:
http://www.limbbylimb.co.uk/feats/dark_london.html

Discuss. I'd also recommend The House of Doctor Dee, by Peter Ackroyd, From Hell (obviously) and Gerald Suster's The Devil's Maze, if you can find it. The Idler magazine also features good psychogeographic writing from time to time. But books is books: get pissed up on booze, take some drugs and walk from Trafalgar Square to Hampstead Tube Station, stopping off at every third pub you see, and write down what happens.

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