An Unreliable Guide to London

An Unreliable Guide to London brings together 23 stories about the lesser known parts of a world renowned city. Stories that stretch the reader's definition of the truth and question reality. Stories of wind nymphs in South Clapham tube station, the horse sized swan at Brentford Ait, sleeping clinics in Islington and celebrations for St Margaret's Day of the Dead.

An Unreliable Guide to London is the perfect summer read for city dwellers up and down the country. With a list of contributors reflecting the multi-layered, complex social structures of the city, it is the guide to London, showing you everything that you never knew existed.

Authors: 

M John Harrison; Chloe Aridjis; Yvvette Edwards; Courttia Newland; Will Wiles; Noo Saro-Wiwa; Nikesh Shukla; Juliet Jacques; Salena Godden; Stephen Thompson; Irenosen Okojie; Sunny Singh; Paul Ewen; Tim Burrows; George F.; Gareth E. Rees; Aki Schilz; Tim Wells; Koye Oyedeji; Eley Williams; Stephanie Victoire

Praise for An Unreliable Guide to London:

‘ ...this is London through the eyes of its people: a proudly patchwork, multiply striated band of immigrants, adventurers, aid workers, delinquents, and discoverers. In a city that is perhaps best described as a palimpsest, a self-renewing parchment for plans and ideas, An Unreliable Guide to London brings its reader in on the subterranean levels of how folk live, love and traverse space.’
– Panorama Journal

‘A fabulously rich collection.’
– Storgy

‘ ...extends the tradition of writing this city and turns it on its head. This collection of odd, complex and at times absurd stories set far from famous landmarks and glittering lights celebrates all that I love about London.’
– Times Higher Education,  Books of 2016

‘We are the writers of whom some will claim they’ve never heard. Perhaps we do not even exist. But we map this city with our words and fill its spaces with our breath. We are London.’
– Psychogeographic Review

‘An Unreliable Guide to London is a timely and significant contribution to the rich tradition of London literature.’
– The Lonesome Reader

‘The places frequented by Shakespeare and Dickens can keep their blue plaques. You’re more likely to find these writers scribbling in an Asda carpark.’
– Time Out London

‘Cue An Unreliable Guide to London, whose remit is not to inform and educate, but rather to disembowel England’s capital city, and inspect her steaming guts.’
– Bookmunch

'An Unreliable Guide to London is a smorgasbord of peeks and views, speculation and imagination, on the London most people never see.  There is an amazingly wide variety of material drawn from an equally diverse group of writers.’
– Speculiction

‘ ...a formidable anthology of top-notch city writing.’
– Hackney Citizen

‘ ...this is not a guidebook, too unspecific and without map, but an excellent collection of compressed slivers of London – of which I’m sure many exist exactly like described here. This is a book about delicious lamp chops, drunken night journeys through Camden, vindictive terriers (stuffed), and rusting Victorian dreadnoughts slowly becoming islands in the Thames.’
– Hong Kong Review of Books

‘This is London, inglorious yet profound.’
– Never Imitate

‘Buy it. Read it. Just don’t blame me if you feel the need to float around London and discover people and places you could never have dreamed of before…’
– What the Log Had to Say

‘We are taken into both the obscure and the well-known locales of London via small-scale dramas that subtly illuminate both the characters and the areas — it's a book to read and then put in one's pocket before visiting the variety of locations discussed... an engaging and provocative collection.’
– Crimetime

‘An Unreliable Guide to London is a quirky and passionate collection that wonderfully encapsulates an alternative view of London and will leave you with a curiosity to explore London’s lesser known areas.’
– Bookshelf Butterfly

‘Above all, the tales show a wonderful diversity of voice doing much justice to the multi-cultural and international megalopolis that is London.’
– Jaffalogue

Further Reading

'There is something very wrong with Leyton Mills Retail Park' by Gareth E. Rees
– Bookanista

Paperback ISBN: 9781910312223
Ebook ISBN: 9781910312230
Publication date: 9th July 2016
Formats: Paperback / eBook