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Cruickshank’s London: A Portrait of a City in 13 Walks
Cruickshank’s London: A Portrait of a City in 13 Walks
Nov 17, 2024 5:19 PM

Author:Dan Cruickshank

Cruickshank’s London: A Portrait of a City in 13 Walks

'The perfect guide to the hidden history of London's streets.' BBC History Magazine

In Cruickshank's London, Britain's favourite architectural historian describes thirteen walks through one of the greatest cities on earth. From the mysterious Anglo-Saxon origins of Hampstead Heath, via Christopher Wren's magisterial City churches, to the industrial bustle of Victorian Bermondsey, each walk explores a crucial moment in our history - and reveals how it helped forge the modern city. Along the way, Cruickshank peppers the book with vivid photographs, sketches and maps, so you can immediately follow in his footsteps.

Every street in London contains a story. This book invites you to hear them.

___

'An inspiringly illustrated guide to walks across London . . . It proves how much we can miss if we don't pay close attention to our surroundings.' Country Life

'All power to Cruickshank and his intrepid and knowledgeable kind. We need them.' Times Literary Supplement

Reviews

All power to Cruickshank and his intrepid and knowledgeable kind. We need them.

—— TLS

An inspiringly illustrated guide to walks across London . . . Proves how much we can miss if we don't pay close attention to our surroundings.

—— Country Life

There can be few people more passionate about Georgian architecture than Dan Cruickshank . . . A call to explore London.

—— Daily Telegraph

Such a beautiful book . . . Absolutely fascinating.

—— Monocle

Reveals the capital . . . Cruickshank finds great stories in the Big Smoke.

—— Best Travel Books , Shortlist

Historic walks covering all corners of the city . . . [Cruickshank] tells little known stories including the West Ham churches inscribed with the occult symbols of the Knights Templar, and the features of Tower Bridge that were included to appease Queen Victoria’s temper.

—— Londonist

A closer look at our magnificent city, under the eagle eye of Dan Cruickshank.

—— Robert Elms, BBC Radio London

Featuring maps and photographs, this new book is the perfect guide to the hidden history of London’s streets.

—— BBC History Magazine

For armchair walkers or history buffs wanting a stroll with a headful of interesting facts to share, it’s an excellent guide.

—— This England

The magic of Begin Again is that it allows us to ponder Baldwin both in his perilous era and in our own. Remarkable, and remarkably relevant

—— Tracy K. Smith, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning Life on Mars

Begin Again is a groundbreaking and informative guide to Baldwin and his era

—— Washington Post

An urgent, deeply interesting book

—— Rachel Cooke , Observer, *Books to Look Out For 2021*

Eddie Glaude has plunged to the profound depths and sublime heights of Baldwin's prophetic challenge to our present-day crisis. This book is, undoubtedly, the best treatment we have of Baldwin's genius and relevance . . . [a] masterpiece

—— Cornel West, author of Democracy Matters and Race Matters

A magnificent book filled with the type of passion, lyricism, and fire that James Baldwin commands and deserves. Eddie Glaude Jr. takes us on a unique and illuminating journey through Baldwin's life and writings by both physically and philosophically following in his footsteps. In this phenomenal work, we are treated to a timeless and spellbinding conversation between two brilliant writers, thinkers, and active witnesses, addressing issues - past, present, and future - that are necessary, urgent, and vital for our survival

—— Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I’m Dying and Everything Inside

Powerful . . . Baldwin did not expect or want history to be rewritten but, rather, honestly confronted

—— Andrew Rosenheim , Tablet

In this powerful and elegant book on James Baldwin, Eddie Glaude weaves together a biography, a meditation, a literary analysis, and a moral essay on America. Like Baldwin's own essays and books, it is at times both loving and angry, challenging and uplifting, and always beautiful. Both Baldwin and this book speak directly to today

—— Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci

A powerful study of how to bear witness in a moment when America is being called to do the same

—— TIME 100 Must-Read Books of 2020

Glaude's book is neither straight biography nor straight history, but rather historiography, reaching back and forth in time to show what Baldwin - whose centenary will be celebrated in 2024 - has to say to us and to teach us through his many writings at a time when "the idea of America is in deep trouble"

—— Liz Thomson , Arts Desk

A powerful, genre-defying work

—— David Terrien , ArtReview

Fascinating . . . An urgent and honest overview of Baldwin's work

—— Chartist

Gripping reading . . . While countless of Chip's decent contemporaries and especially politicians are today forgotten, the diaries make him an indispensable source for anyone writing of this period.

—— Max Hastings , The Sunday Times

Chips perfectly embodied the qualities vital to the task: a capacious ear for gossip, a neat turn of phrase, a waspish desire to tell all, and easy access to the highest social circles across Europe . . . Blending Woosterish antics with a Lady Bracknellesque capacity for acid comment. Replete with fascinating insights.

—— Jesse Norman , Financial Times

Better than any history or histories of these two decades . . . like a fusion of Debrett's and the Almanach de Gotha . . . Scrupulously scholarly . . . Simon Heffer has done a great service by revealing in this extraordinary new edition of the Channon diaries the decadence and complacency of the English political and upper classes.

—— Denis Macshane , The Tablet

Mind-bending and utterly original. It's like Thomas Bernhard in the key of Rachel Cusk but about black subjectivity

—— Brandon Taylor, author of 'Real Life'

Brilliantly sharp and curiously Alice-like... It centres on a gifted and driven young Black woman navigating a topsy-turvy and increasingly maddening modern Britain... Her indictment is forensic, clear, elegant, a prose-polished looking glass held up to her not-so-post-colonial nation. Only one puzzle remains unsolved: how a novel so slight can bear such weight

—— Times Literary Supplement

A piercing, cautionary tale about the costs of assimilating into a society still in denial about its colonial past. Brown writes with the deftness and insight of a poet

—— Mary Jean Chan, author of 'Flèche'

Bold, elegant, and all the more powerful for its brevity, Assembly captures the sickening weightlessness which a Black British woman, who has been obedient to and complicit with the capitalist system, experiences as she makes life-changing decisions under the pressure of the hegemony

—— Paul Mendez, author of 'Rainbow Milk'

This is a stunning achievement of compressed narrative and fearless articulation

—— Publisher's Weekly

One of the most talked-about debuts of the year . . . you'll read it in one sitting

—— Sunday Times Style

Thrilling... Brown gets straight to the point. With delivery as crisp and biting into an apple, she short-circuits expectation... This is [the narrator's] story, and she will tell it how she wishes, unpicking convention and form. Like The Drivers' Seat by Muriel Spark, it's thrilling to see a protagonist opting out and going her own way

—— Scotsman

A nuanced, form-redefining exploration on class, work, gender and race

—— Harper’s Bazaar

Across 100 lean pages, Brown deftly handles a gigantic literary heritage... Her style rivals the best contemporary modernists, like Eimear McBride and Rachel Cusk; innocuous or obscure on a first reading, punching on a second... Assembly is only the start

—— Daily Telegraph

There's something of Isherwood in Brown's spare, illuminating prose... A series of jagged-edged shards that when accumulated form an unhappy mirror in which modern Britain might examine itself

—— Literary Review

A debut novel as slender and deadly as an adder

—— Los Angeles Times

A razor-sharp debut... This powerful short novel suggests meaningful discussion of race is all but impossible if imperialism's historical violence remains taboo

—— Daily Mail

Bold, spare, agonisingly well-observed. An impressive debut

—— Tatler

Excoriating, unstoppable... The simplicity of the narrative allows complexity in the form: over barely a hundred pages, broken into prose fragments that have been assembled with both care and mercilessness

—— London Review of Books

Beguiling and beautifully written, this is the work of an author with a bright future

—— Tortoise

Coruscating originality, emotional potency, astonishing artistic vim... This signals the arrival of a truly breathtaking literary voice... A scintillating tour de force

—— Yorkshire Times

Fierce and accomplished, Assembly interrogates the high cost of surviving in a system designed to exclude you

—— Economist

I was blown away by Assembly, an astonishing book that forces us to see what's underpinning absolutely everything

—— Lauren Elkin, author of 'Flaneuse'

Coiled and charged, a small shockwave... Sometimes you come across a short novel of such compressed intensity that you wonder why anyone would bother reading longer narratives... [Assembly] casts a huge shadow

—— MoneyControl

A masterwork . . . it contains centuries of wisdom, aesthetic experimentation and history. Brown handles her debut with a surgeon's control and a musician's sensitivity to sound

—— Tess Gunty , Guardian

An extraordinary book, and a compelling read that had me not only gripped but immediately determined to listen again... Highly recommended

—— Financial Times on 'Assembly' in audiobook

'As utterly, urgently brilliant as everyone has said. A needle driven directly into the sclerotic heart of contemporary Britain. Beautiful proof that you don't need to write a long book, just a good book'

—— Rebecca Tamas, author of 'Witch'

Every line of this electrifying debut novel pulses with canny social critique

—— Oprah Daily

Devastatingly eloquent, bold, poignant

—— Shelf Awareness

An achievement that will leave you wondering just how it's possible that this is only the author's very first work... Brown packs so much commentary and insight inside of every single sentence... Original and startling all at once. After reading Assembly, I cannot wait to see what Natasha Brown does next

—— Shondaland

[Brown's] work is like that of an excellent photographer - you feel like you are finally seeing the world sharply and without the common filters. That is hypnotising

—— Rowan Hisayo Buchanan , Guardian

A brilliantly compressed, existentially daring study of a high-flying Black woman negotiating the British establishment

—— Guardian, 'Best Fiction of 2021' , Justine Jordan
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