Benedict le Vay

This book is certainly detailing eccentric London. However, detailing is the operative word. Here le Vay leaves no stone untouched, no tree without comment and no blue oval plaque unmentioned. It's quite charming, in its own way. If you picked this up a guide book you might be a bit disappointed unless you live locally. If you're, say, an American tourist like me who only has a given number of days and pounds to spend in London, it's less helpful. That said, not many a book will comment on the reasons that London is the way that it is in such specific ways and have such informed notes on them. It would be easy to shelve this as long-winded trivia and call it a day. Instead you could call this a tour book for those who loved Peter Ackroyd's London: A Biography. It is that thorough, that passionate and that lengthy.… (mere)