City Secrets: London is the third book in the intriguing City Secrets series, published by the Little Bookroom, an American sister company of Granta. The idea behind the books was to develop an anecdotal guide by London's writers, artists, historians and designers and to reveal favourite hidden corners as well as giving new insights on well-known places.
As in the much-acclaimed City Secrets: Rome and City Secrets: Florence, Venice and the Towns of Italy, the quirkiness and individuality of the approach pays dividends here. The biographer and critic Fiona McCarthy gives a cogent and evocative essay about the Freud Museum in Finchley where Freud lived after his last-ditch flight from the Nazis, while interior decorator David Mlinaric is equally intriguing discussing London Underground design, which he conjures in an essay that will send readers out to discover the work of Eric Gill and Eduardo Paolozzi (whose mosaic murals may be found at Tottenham Court Road station). And journalist Ruth Pavey will have many of us up at 4am visiting Hampstead Heath to enjoy the dawn chorus and the bat walks: hers is one of the most fascinating essays in this invaluable little book. Part of the appeal of this series is its steadfast refusal to visit well-trodden paths; where it intersects with the more familiar guidebooks, there is always an idiosyncratic approach that marks it out as something much more interesting. --Barry Forshaw