A dense and colourful account of one of the most vibrant musical centres in the world, In the City almost puts you on that train to London

(An) exhilarating new history of the music that defines the capital

Du Noyer's crowning achievement with In the City, however, is to tie all the strands together ever so neatly without affecting a smug resolution. Its a celebration of the city's music through the centuries, for sure, but its more than just that

Du Noyer digs impressively deep for insight ... it evokes London as a place of converged cultures, found sounds and infinite possibilities

Paul Du Noyer's superb new book

A bit like Peter Ackroyd's work, only you can whistle along

The first book properly to anatomise the popular music of our capital is a mighty achievement - and a cracking read. Du Noyer unravels the threads that link Elizabethan balladry to Britpop, bhangra and beyond, constructing a seamless social history that pays as much heed to Gilbert and Sullivan as Small Faces. Mapping the music halls of the East End, the ballrooms of Mayfair and the basement clubs that housed renegade bands, his book is a hymn to a metropolis whose musical vigour lies in its with, its ruthlessly competitive commercial spirit and passion for riotous fun. An engrossing story, beautifully told by and expat Liverpudlian who doesn't miss a trick.

[4 stars] All the sounds of the Smoke

No one can make you feel quite like Stephen Fry can . . . Funny and tormentedly frank

Hugely enjoyable . . . compulsively readable . . . Fry is excellent on the details of memory, too, and always able to embellish them with effortless erudition . . . this engaging, engrossing read is as honest a portrait of a young liar as one could hope to read

He is bubbly, funny and charming, and he gives his fans plenty of material if they want to speculate on why he is both so gifted and so wayward

The jokes . . . transcend the complexes of the joker, turning the Stephenesque into a national as well as a family treasure

Not so much an autobiography, more a way of life; discursive, funny, sometimes almost unbelievably sad, opinionated, nostalgic and very infectious

Fry can be funny about anything

So charming and so acute that one cannot help forgiving him