Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now--As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It

$18.72
by Craig Taylor

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“Craig Taylor is the real deal: a peerless journalist and a beautiful craftsman.” —David Rakoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Fraud and Half Empty “ Londoners is a wonderful book—I wanted it to be twice as long.” —Diana Athill, New York Times bestselling author of Somewhere Towards the End In Londoners , acclaimed journalist Craig Taylor paints readers an epic portrait of today’s London that is as rich and lively as the city itself. In the style of Studs Terkel ( Working , Hard Times , The Good War ) and Dave Isay ( Listening Is an Act of Love ), Londoners offers up  the stories, the gripes, the memories, and the dreams of those in the great and vibrant British metropolis who “love it, hate it, live it, left it, and long for it,” from a West End rickshaw driver to a Soldier of the Guard at Buckingham Palace to a recovering heroin addict seeing Big Ben for the very first time. Published just in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games, Londoners is a glorious literary celebration of one of the world’s truly great cities. “Highly engaging. . . . Bursts with charm, edification, and life.” - Booklist “Remarkable. . . . Essential. . . . Enlightening. . . . Londoners offers an impression of the city’s people, a way to understand their motives and fears and the simmering rush. It captures the combination of quiet desperation and boundless optimism required to live [there].” - San Francisco Chronicle “Impressive. . . . A scintillating oral history.” - Newark Star Ledger “Engaging. . . . A treasury of compact vignettes from voices that are rarely heard but come closer to the truth of the city than any travel brochure or official document.” - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “Fascinating. . . . Makes you want to join Taylor in “The London Chase.” - Minneapolis Star Tribune “Whether or not you know London, whether or not you love it, this book is for you. . . . A polyphonic hymn to the Big Smoke.” - Newsday “Ambitious [and] creative. . . . A book to deepen your relationship with London and make you fall in - or out - of love with it all over again. . . . I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it.” - Lucy Worsley, author of If Walls Could Talk “From Brixton to Piccadilly Circus, a fascinating oral history of contemporary London.” - Chicago Tribune “Immensely enjoyable. . . . Reminded us of Studs Terkel’s best books.” - The Observer's Very Short List “A rich and exuberant kaleidoscopic portrait of a great, messy, noisy, daunting, inspiring, maddening, enthralling, constantly shifting Rorschach test of a place. . . . Delightful. . . . In Taylor’s patient and sympathetic hands, regular people become poets, philosophers, orators.” - New York Times Book Review “Samuel Johnson said, ‘When you are tired of London, you’re tired of life.’ Craig Taylor is tired of neither London nor life, and this book is a gorgeous, utterly irresistible―even addictive―ode to both.” - David Shields, bestselling author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead and Reality Hunger “Fans of Studs Terkel’s insightful oral histories will be delighted to discover a successor in Taylor. . . . His book brings London to life as it is―ever changing, ever eternal, ever unforgettable. A delight!” - Library Journal (starred review) “Craig Taylor is the real deal: a peerless journalist and a beautiful craftsman. He’d be a household name already if he wasn’t so modest. He’ll be one anyway in due course.” - David Rakoff, bestselling author of Fraud and Half Empty “Alternately poignant, uplifting, amusing and sad. . . . A nicely polished oral history―good reading.” - Kirkus Reviews “[ Londoners ] provides an ambitious, wide-ranging compilation of oral histories by the people who live, work, and, even quit the city, with a lively, unvarnished sense of the feelings the city inspires.” - Publishers Weekly “A compelling oral history.” - The Independent (London) “Often reading like short stories, the 80 interviews in Craig Taylor’s Londoners are engrossing. Full of details [and] full of life.” - Observer (London) “ Londoners is a wonderful book―I wanted it to be twice as long.” - Diana Athill, bestselling author of Somewhere Towards the End “A remarkable new book that celebrates the city’s endless diversity. . . . Five stars.” - Time Out London “An epic portrait in eighty voices that shows the city to be just [as] Dickensian as it has ever been.” - David Nicholls, bestselling author of One Day “A thrilling portrait of the city. . . . Enchanting. . . . I feel I almost learned more about Londoners from this book than from being a Londoner for more than four decades. . . . Too good to miss.” - Oona King, The Times (London) “A haunting snapshot of contemporary London, by a Canadian whose intimate interviews with the city’s inhabitants are both charming and revealing.” - Evening Standard (London) “Splendid. . . . A remarkable volume [of] countless funny, terrifying, epic stories.” - Guardian (Lon

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