THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY...

...Well, actually, I had to let it go: A History Of London by Stephen Inwood: 900+ pages about London from earliest times to recent times, of which I was only able to slog through 500+ pages before finally surrendering. Now it's not that I don't enjoy large books (hey, I read War And Peace at the age of 15, in 2 weeks). The problem with this book is that the author apparently wrote this as if it was a text book, not a mass-market history. The book is filled with facts and figures, with little feel for the people who lived in London, except where they intersect with the facts and figures.

A damn shame really, since I lived in London and it's outskirts for about a year and found it to be a fascinating place - where else could you find the actual Dickens's 'Old Curiosity Shop' right next to a high-rise office building; with scaffolding erected above it in case something fell from the high-rise! Which I actually found by accident one day while wandering around London, which was one of my favorite pastimes.

So, I'll just keep reading, and maybe someday I'll find a 900+ page history of London that's actually readable...hey, I can always hope, can't I?