London has the greatest literary tradition of any city in the world. Its roll-call of story-tellers includes cultural giants who changed the way the world thought about writing, like Shakespeare, Defoe and Dickens. But there has also been an innumerable host of writers who have sought to capture the essence of London and what it meant for the people who lived there or were merely passing through. They found a city of boundless wealth and ragged squalor, of moving tragedy and riotous joy; and they faithfully transcribed what they saw and felt in the stories they told of London town.
They are stories of fact and fiction and occasionally something in between. Some voices will be familiar to many readers and others practically unknown. But all give us insights into these writers’ very varied Londons; and all tell their stories gratifyingly well.
Authors include John Evelyn, Thomas de Quincey, W. M. Thackeray, Henry Mayhew, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George Gissing, J. B. Priestley, Jean Rhys, Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, Maeve Binchy, Doris Lessing, Hanif Kureishi and Shena Mackay.
Compelling, inventive and bleakly funny
—— Big IssueDeep black humour...owes a debt to Italo Calvino
—— Daily TelegraphMa's writing shines a light that is both humane and angry into some of the dustiest corners of a closed and often forgotten society
—— ObserverPlayful and wonderfully dark...a Chinese Kundera
—— Philip MarsdenThere's more than a whiff of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness about these tales, by turns savage, funny, unsettling
—— The TimesSkilful and unsettling
—— IndependentMr Bones is a series of characteristically dark and sharply focused snapshots from the world that Paul Theroux has observed - and invented
—— New York TimesSuave and accomplished
—— Washington TimesMr Bones showcases the author's virtuoso storytelling abilities, as he tells stories of tricky situations, slippery personalities and unsettling motives
—— Seattle TimesMisfits and twisted individuals loom large throughout these urbane stories . . . satirically edged.
—— The CulturePaul Theroux combines the traveller's hawk eye with the novelist's keen insight. . .[he has] an uncanny ability to rivet the reader.
—— New StatesmanA masterpiece of wit and elegance.
—— Elspeth Barker , Literary ReviewThe author charts the various stages of life with engaging curiosity and earthy compassion... The publishers, Jonathan Cape, have done a fine job with this handsome and substantial collection.
—— Keith Hopper , Times Literary SupplementAll the customary satisfactions of Burnside's writing – anomie, menace, flashes of violence and cruelty, hallucination and snow – but multiplied.
—— Sunday TelegraphEven Burnside’s most routine stories have beauty and intelligence. He is never less than something like brilliant.
—— Daily TelegraphA tremendous collection from a writer working at the full tilt of his gifts.
—— Kevin Barry , Ormskirk Advertiser
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