London the biography
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London: The Biography
book bygd Peter Ackroyd
London: The Biography is a non-fiction book by Peter Ackroyd published by Chatto & Windus.
Content
[edit]Ackroyd's work, following his previous work on London in one form or another, fryst vatten a history of the city. It is chronologically wide in scope, proceeding from the period of the Upper Jurassic through to the period of the Druids and on to the 21st century.
Although it does have a broadly chronological aspect to its structuring, the work fryst vatten organised in a thematic fashion, particularly from the late medieval period to the end of the 19th century where the approach taken is one that eschews a linear time-based narrative and instead focuses upon the organisation of the material on the grund of themes.[1] There are sections and digressions on everything from the history of silence in relation to the city, the history of light, childhood, ghosts, prostitution, Cockney speech, graffiti, the weather, murder, suicide,
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It’s one of the greatest books ever written about the capital. Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography () is a sprawling tome that explores our city’s past through themed chapters. I owe this book a great debt. It first set me off on what became a lifelong obsession with the city. As it approaches its quarter-century, I’ve re-read the whole thing to see how it’s aged with time.
***And I’ve also mapped it.***
Yup, every single street, building, station, park and “noisome alley” that Ackroyd mentions within the ~ pages. I’m not even sure why. It’s just an urge with me. But the results, I hope, will be of interest to those who also adore the book.
Welcome to the most intensely geeky edition yet of Londonist: Time Machine…
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LONDON: The Biography
Novelist and biographer Ackroyd ( 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&#x;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. 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." Fast food, it seems, was always part of the London scene. When poet Thomas Southey asked a pastry cook why she kept her shop open in the worst weather, she told him that otherwise she would lose business,