Welcome to On Our Reading Radar - our monthly live discussion thread which is our chance to share:
Anything we’d recommend on the theme of LONDON
Anything we’ve loved reading / watching / listening to over March.
Joining us is Dr Matthew Green, historian, writer, broadcaster and leader of excellent immersive tours through London. (You can book one HERE.) He has kindly supplied copies of his excellent book, London A Travel Guide through Time to give away to three lucky participants in this month’s discussion thread.To be in with a chance to win one simply leave a comment on the thread. (Winners will be notified by email.)
I’ve got a few questions for Matt up my sleeve; please join in with your own. And also, please do share your own recommendations - wonderful to know what you’ve all been enjoying!
The live typing event takes place TODAY, NOW at 1.30-2pm GMT, but if the time doesn’t work for you, you can catch up with the discussion and add your contribution at a later date.
So tell me, what books would you recommend about London?
The London book I'm currently reading and enjoying is "In The Shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral: The Churchyard that Shaped London"; by Margaret Willes. I have another which I haven't read yet "A Woman Lived Here: Alternative Blue Plaques, Remembering London's Remarkable Women"; by Allison Vale.
I’m in the midst of reading Jill by Philip Larkin. I’m sure it’s on your radar, but as I was reading I’ve not been able to help thinking of interesting connections with the books you selected for this quarter …
The idea of fitting in or not, moving somewhere new, prejudice and privilege, as well being a fascinating picture of the early stages of WW2.
For a London book, Akala's The Dark Lady - a Shakespearean London-based adventure, returning to theatre as street language, of the people and with a huge sense of atmosphere. And Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, using London in a completely unusual and very mythic way.
I love how London is used in Edge of Tomorrow: Live, Die, Repeat and in the Craig Bond films (and before). London looks beautiful in Skyfall =) Also Tom Cruises's 'impossible' run across St Paul's Cathedral in Mission Impossible: Fallout. Not to mention the colour pop and joy of Rye Lane with parts of London not usually seen on screen coming to the fore.
Whow that’s some typing! Lots of great suggestions but to add to the mix here’s some excellent London films all worth watching: Anthony Asquith’s Underground (1928), Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929) - the heroine’s parents run a little shop in Chelsea, Googie Withers in It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), David Hemmings in Antonioni’s Blow Up (1965), Mick Jagger in Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970) and Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren in The Long Good Friday (1979).
The White Phoenix by Catherine Randall is a great book for children/teens (& adults I can vouch) set in 1666 London ... Brilliant historical fiction read
Matt - If someone is coming to London for the first time, knowing nothing at all about the city, what three books (aside from your own) would you suggest in an attempt to cover everything?
Many years ago I worked in publishing for a while and especially enjoyed working on books that explored London. Some London books that I helped with include:
London Lore by Steve Roud
The Secret History of Georgian London by Dan Cruikshank
Derelict London and London's Lost Rivers by Paul Talling
Matt - How about other books exploring migrant experiences of London? I loved Emmanuel Litvinoff’s Journey Through a Small Planet, which conjures the area around Spitalfields when it was predominantly Jewish. And that area was vividly reimagined by Monica Ali in Brick Lane, when it was largely Bangladeshi. Can you recommend some others?
As promised: here is a list of all the books (I think!) set in / about London that we've discussed over the years in the walking book club. Some real gems here - I'd love it if anyone could let me know if they have any favourite(s):
Our very first book was: A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
Then ...
2. Westwood by Stella Gibbons
3. All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
4. Spies by Michael Frayn
5. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
6. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
7. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
8. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
9. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
Matt - another great London novel we enjoyed recently was To Sir with Love by ER Braithwaite, which is based on the Guyanese author’s experience of post-war London. Can you recommend any other books about London by writers of colour?
Matt - London is of course steeped in history. Do you have a favourite period of this city’s history? And could you recommend 3 books to aid your explorations of this time?
I actually find 50s London more interesting. A London which, although bomb-pocked, gritty, grey, austere, and for many miserable was beginning to saturate into colour in places like Chelsea. Mary Quant opened the fashion boutique Bazaar on the King's Road, replete with surreal mannequins in the window. She wanted to stop women dressing like their grandmothers. She championed the BOB CUT and POLKA-DOT DRESS. Her lover, Alexander Plunket-Greene, operated a bolognese shack on the floor below so ever was the comforting aroma of bolognese breezing through the garments. Every customer given a glass of whisky. Here were the birth-pangs of the wild fashion experiments and transgressive bohemianism that defined '60s London. Today it's a Santander Bank :((( So her memoir, Mary Quant: My Autobiography or Quant by Quant is as evocative as anything else you're likely to find, and it spills into her experiences in the 60s, too.  Â
A couple of London blogs fellow book club walkers might like:
• Something I read almost every morning is The Gentle Author’s Spitalfields Life which covers a whole range of subjects East End-related and otherwise. As a taster here’s a recent one following the death of Bernard Kops: https://spitalfieldslife.com/2024/03/05/so-long-bernard-kops/
• Dave Hill’s https://www.onlondon.co.uk mainly focuses on politics of all forms but he has recently published a novel under the pseudonym John Vane called Frightgeist: A Tall Tale of Fearful Times about what happens when London elects a Black woman as Mayor. This year he’s also trying to read as many novels about London as possible. Here’s his most recent reflections on Fred Basnet’s Gropers (1977): https://johnvane.substack.com/p/london-fiction-gropers-or-a-splendid - I’d never heard of it either but the debate in the post has echoes of last Sunday’s as well.
Hmm. The Ballad of Peckham Rye? Muriel Spark. That's a fun one. Great title too. More about West End bohemians, Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes (teddy boys, espresso bars and all-night Soho). And the recently discovered, Love Leda, by Mark Hyatt (gay and bisexual drifters, again in Soho, in what sounds like a surprisingly liberal London before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967). Brings a tinge of sadness, these ones, as the Soho it describes is imperilled as the property developers and banks and avaricious landlords move in and ruin everything. You can still find it, though, in Trisha's, in the Academy Club (which recalls the Colony Room Club) and, most magnificently of all, Gerry's, the basement bar on Dean Street, bathed in the blood-light of dozens of red-lampshades, with disreputable, fallen figures who look like they've been existence since the birth of the very universe itself propping up the bar, live music played drunkenly, wild whirling dancing, and rancid red wine. Prepare for a lie-in.
Matt - The March 2024 pick for Emily’s Walking Book Club is The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks – which is very much set in 1960s London. Can you think of any other great novels or films set in London at around this time?
I have this wonderful tip from Michael, who unfortunately can't join us on the thread today:
Here’s something on iPlayer worth watching: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074ry7/to-the-worlds-end-scenes-and-characters-on-a-london-bus-route To the World’s End: scenes and characters on a London bus route was first broadcast in 1985 and gives a picture of the city not a million miles from the place Jane Graham inhabits. I particularly like (at 16 minutes) Mary from Tipperary, where my father was from, who could easily have been one of my aunts, (at 37 minutes) a glimpse of Earl’s Court when it was the heart of gay (male) life and finally at around 40 minutes Tony Tobias’ newsagents. This was round the corner from where I worked at the same time and you’ll see he’s got the postcards in the window. His shop is long gone and the neighbourhood is a lot smarter but it’s hard not to be a bit nostalgic about it all.
Thank you Emily, it's an honour to be asked. LONDON was my first book, I feel rather nostalgic about it. The conceit is that you're a time traveller who touches something in the present (a fragment of the medieval wall, a plaque commemorating a coffeehouse) or walks down an odd-sounding street (like Bear Alley) only to open your eyes and find yourself in the past. I wanted to make it as vivid and immediate as possible — 'there used to be 160 houses on London Bridge' is a boring thing to say; 'as you contend with geese pecking at your boots and link boys tugging at your mantel, the air stained with the curses of wherrymen, you pass under a row of lurching timber-framed houses whose upper storeys bulge over the river like peascod bellies, and the tunnel swallows the light and casts you into the dark' is interesting, in my view. That sentence isn't actually in the book but you know what I mean: the whole thing is written in the second-person, present-tense, almost like an adventure novel of old.
So, Matt, thanks so much for joining us as an expert on all things London.
Please could you also tell us a bit about your London walking tours, as I’m sure many walking book clubbers will be intrigued. Which is the most popular tour?
People coming late to this thread, please feel free to post your recommendations and thoughts below anytime
From Barbara by email:
The London book I'm currently reading and enjoying is "In The Shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral: The Churchyard that Shaped London"; by Margaret Willes. I have another which I haven't read yet "A Woman Lived Here: Alternative Blue Plaques, Remembering London's Remarkable Women"; by Allison Vale.
From Charlotte, by email:
I’m in the midst of reading Jill by Philip Larkin. I’m sure it’s on your radar, but as I was reading I’ve not been able to help thinking of interesting connections with the books you selected for this quarter …
The idea of fitting in or not, moving somewhere new, prejudice and privilege, as well being a fascinating picture of the early stages of WW2.
Maggie has just shared this by email: https://upstairsatthegatehouse.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173653402
London Bridges by Jane Stevenson is a fun thriller with a London that I recognise
For a London book, Akala's The Dark Lady - a Shakespearean London-based adventure, returning to theatre as street language, of the people and with a huge sense of atmosphere. And Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, using London in a completely unusual and very mythic way.
I love how London is used in Edge of Tomorrow: Live, Die, Repeat and in the Craig Bond films (and before). London looks beautiful in Skyfall =) Also Tom Cruises's 'impossible' run across St Paul's Cathedral in Mission Impossible: Fallout. Not to mention the colour pop and joy of Rye Lane with parts of London not usually seen on screen coming to the fore.
Whow that’s some typing! Lots of great suggestions but to add to the mix here’s some excellent London films all worth watching: Anthony Asquith’s Underground (1928), Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929) - the heroine’s parents run a little shop in Chelsea, Googie Withers in It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), David Hemmings in Antonioni’s Blow Up (1965), Mick Jagger in Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970) and Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren in The Long Good Friday (1979).
Wow, that would be amazing! Please email me hackneyhistoryfestival@gmail.com - would be great to get it in the programme ASAP
The White Phoenix by Catherine Randall is a great book for children/teens (& adults I can vouch) set in 1666 London ... Brilliant historical fiction read
Looking forward to seeing people for our next thread on 26th April, focussing on all things to do with Solitude
The three lucky winners of Matt's book will be notified by email - good luck!
Thank you also to:
Sue
Susan
Janet
Sarah
for taking part.
Thank you so much to Matt for joining us and sharing his fascinating tips on all things London
Matt - If someone is coming to London for the first time, knowing nothing at all about the city, what three books (aside from your own) would you suggest in an attempt to cover everything?
Three minutes left...
Extremely un-London but I'm so glad to have the new series of Curb Your Enthusiasm!
I have got to shout out for two books I've recently reviewed and loved:
Barcelona by Mary Costello – beautiful short stories: here's my Guardian review:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/06/barcelona-by-mary-costello-review-haunting-tales-of-what-cant-be-said
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel – extremely punchy (haha) novel about girl boxers - here's my Spectator review
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boxing-clever-headshot-by-rita-bullwinkel-reviewed/
What's everyone been enjoying reading and watching over this past month?
This thread is also a chance to recommend non-London specific things!
I am reading for review Andrew O'Hagan's new book Caledonian Road - brilliant on london today. And absolutely vast
Matt - How about contemporary London? Are there any great books that capture the city today? What about films or TV set in contemporary London?
Many years ago I worked in publishing for a while and especially enjoyed working on books that explored London. Some London books that I helped with include:
London Lore by Steve Roud
The Secret History of Georgian London by Dan Cruikshank
Derelict London and London's Lost Rivers by Paul Talling
Have any of you read them?
Matt - How about other books exploring migrant experiences of London? I loved Emmanuel Litvinoff’s Journey Through a Small Planet, which conjures the area around Spitalfields when it was predominantly Jewish. And that area was vividly reimagined by Monica Ali in Brick Lane, when it was largely Bangladeshi. Can you recommend some others?
As promised: here is a list of all the books (I think!) set in / about London that we've discussed over the years in the walking book club. Some real gems here - I'd love it if anyone could let me know if they have any favourite(s):
Our very first book was: A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
Then ...
2. Westwood by Stella Gibbons
3. All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West
4. Spies by Michael Frayn
5. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
6. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
7. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
8. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
9. Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
10. Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
11. Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym
12. Metroland by Julian Barnes
13. The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
14. Look at me Anita Brookner
15. The pumpkin eater by Penelope Mortimer
16. At Freddie's by Penelope Fitzgerald
17. Mrs Dalloway by Virgina Woolf
18. Howards End by EM Forster
19. A Touch of Misteltoe by Barbara Comyns
20. The World my Wilderness by Rose Macaulay
21. To Sir With Love by ER Benson
Vanity Fair also covers some interesting aspects of London life
I loved Enbury Heath a semi autobiographical book by Stella Gibbons set in Hampstead in The Vale of Health
Matt - another great London novel we enjoyed recently was To Sir with Love by ER Braithwaite, which is based on the Guyanese author’s experience of post-war London. Can you recommend any other books about London by writers of colour?
I'm going to post a long list of all the walking book club's London books shortly...
Matt - London is of course steeped in history. Do you have a favourite period of this city’s history? And could you recommend 3 books to aid your explorations of this time?
I actually find 50s London more interesting. A London which, although bomb-pocked, gritty, grey, austere, and for many miserable was beginning to saturate into colour in places like Chelsea. Mary Quant opened the fashion boutique Bazaar on the King's Road, replete with surreal mannequins in the window. She wanted to stop women dressing like their grandmothers. She championed the BOB CUT and POLKA-DOT DRESS. Her lover, Alexander Plunket-Greene, operated a bolognese shack on the floor below so ever was the comforting aroma of bolognese breezing through the garments. Every customer given a glass of whisky. Here were the birth-pangs of the wild fashion experiments and transgressive bohemianism that defined '60s London. Today it's a Santander Bank :((( So her memoir, Mary Quant: My Autobiography or Quant by Quant is as evocative as anything else you're likely to find, and it spills into her experiences in the 60s, too.  Â
This also from Michael:
A couple of London blogs fellow book club walkers might like:
• Something I read almost every morning is The Gentle Author’s Spitalfields Life which covers a whole range of subjects East End-related and otherwise. As a taster here’s a recent one following the death of Bernard Kops: https://spitalfieldslife.com/2024/03/05/so-long-bernard-kops/
• Dave Hill’s https://www.onlondon.co.uk mainly focuses on politics of all forms but he has recently published a novel under the pseudonym John Vane called Frightgeist: A Tall Tale of Fearful Times about what happens when London elects a Black woman as Mayor. This year he’s also trying to read as many novels about London as possible. Here’s his most recent reflections on Fred Basnet’s Gropers (1977): https://johnvane.substack.com/p/london-fiction-gropers-or-a-splendid - I’d never heard of it either but the debate in the post has echoes of last Sunday’s as well.
Hmm. The Ballad of Peckham Rye? Muriel Spark. That's a fun one. Great title too. More about West End bohemians, Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes (teddy boys, espresso bars and all-night Soho). And the recently discovered, Love Leda, by Mark Hyatt (gay and bisexual drifters, again in Soho, in what sounds like a surprisingly liberal London before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967). Brings a tinge of sadness, these ones, as the Soho it describes is imperilled as the property developers and banks and avaricious landlords move in and ruin everything. You can still find it, though, in Trisha's, in the Academy Club (which recalls the Colony Room Club) and, most magnificently of all, Gerry's, the basement bar on Dean Street, bathed in the blood-light of dozens of red-lampshades, with disreputable, fallen figures who look like they've been existence since the birth of the very universe itself propping up the bar, live music played drunkenly, wild whirling dancing, and rancid red wine. Prepare for a lie-in.
I loved 2 books by Diana Evan's- Ordinary people and A house for Alice.Also Zadie Smith's books and books by Susie Steiner
Matt - The March 2024 pick for Emily’s Walking Book Club is The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks – which is very much set in 1960s London. Can you think of any other great novels or films set in London at around this time?
I have this wonderful tip from Michael, who unfortunately can't join us on the thread today:
Here’s something on iPlayer worth watching: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074ry7/to-the-worlds-end-scenes-and-characters-on-a-london-bus-route To the World’s End: scenes and characters on a London bus route was first broadcast in 1985 and gives a picture of the city not a million miles from the place Jane Graham inhabits. I particularly like (at 16 minutes) Mary from Tipperary, where my father was from, who could easily have been one of my aunts, (at 37 minutes) a glimpse of Earl’s Court when it was the heart of gay (male) life and finally at around 40 minutes Tony Tobias’ newsagents. This was round the corner from where I worked at the same time and you’ll see he’s got the postcards in the window. His shop is long gone and the neighbourhood is a lot smarter but it’s hard not to be a bit nostalgic about it all.
Everyone, please feel free to chip in with your own London recommendations, along with any questions for Matt
Thank you Emily, it's an honour to be asked. LONDON was my first book, I feel rather nostalgic about it. The conceit is that you're a time traveller who touches something in the present (a fragment of the medieval wall, a plaque commemorating a coffeehouse) or walks down an odd-sounding street (like Bear Alley) only to open your eyes and find yourself in the past. I wanted to make it as vivid and immediate as possible — 'there used to be 160 houses on London Bridge' is a boring thing to say; 'as you contend with geese pecking at your boots and link boys tugging at your mantel, the air stained with the curses of wherrymen, you pass under a row of lurching timber-framed houses whose upper storeys bulge over the river like peascod bellies, and the tunnel swallows the light and casts you into the dark' is interesting, in my view. That sentence isn't actually in the book but you know what I mean: the whole thing is written in the second-person, present-tense, almost like an adventure novel of old.
So, Matt, thanks so much for joining us as an expert on all things London.
Please could you also tell us a bit about your London walking tours, as I’m sure many walking book clubbers will be intrigued. Which is the most popular tour?
Hi, this is Janet, organising Hackney History Festival.
Hello - sarah here. I am hoping to win a copy of your book Matt - I loved Shadowlands!
I'm trying to remember, Matt, when we first met. It was at university - perhaps a good sign that I can't remember?! Can you?
Hello everyone! Looking forward to this typathon greatly
The conversation will begin at 1.30 sharp - in the meantime please say hello as you join the thread
Hi everyone, I'm a few minutes early and excited to begin this month's discussion thread