London the biography epub

description

From Publishers Weekly Novelist and biographer Ackroyd (The Plato Papers; T.S.

Eliot; etc.) offers a huge, enthralling "biography" of the city of London. The reader segues through this litany of lists and anthology of anecdotes via the sketchiest of topical linkages, but no matter not a page is dull, until brief closing chapters in which Ackroyd succumbs to bathos, for which he's instantaneously redeemed by the preceding chapters.

London: the biography xxiii, p.

Much of Peter Ackroyd's work has been concerned with the life and past of London but here, as a culmination, is his definitive account of the city.

Ackroyd examines London from its pre-history through today, artfully selecting, organizing and pacing stories, and rendering the past in witty and imaginative.

Peter Ackroyd sees London as a living, breathing organism, with its own laws of growth and change.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK.

He admits to using no original research, openly crediting his printed sources. Ackroyd examines London from its pre-history through today, artfully selecting, organizing and pacing stories, and rendering the past in witty and imaginative ways.

"The opium quarter of Limehouse," he tells readers, for example, "is now represented by a Chinese take-away.