quippe | Entries tagged with ed glinert

The Blurb On The Back:

From Mayfair to Soho, Shaftesbury Avenue to Fitrovia, the West End has always been the glittering heart of London’s social life, lit by cosy cafes, brothels, drinking dens and music venues. But these bright lights have also hidden a world of violence and immorality, a world familiar to Aleister Crowley and the Mafia.

Ed Glinert looks at the glorious triumphs of West End Life – from Rothschild’s zebra-drawn coach bringing Piccadilly to a standstill, to the Dorchester’s luxurious World War Two bomb shelters, as well as its dark core, concealing nineteenth-century cocaine addicts, murder and vice – each combining to show the famous hub of London in an entirely new way.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

It’s a decent primer to the history of the West End and a useful resource to dip into if you have an interest in the area.

The Blurb On The Back:

Medieval burial ground, Victorian hell hole, Blitz bombing target, modern artists’ playground: the East End has always been London’s strange alter ego, with an identity unlike anywhere else.

Here Ed Glinert tells the dark, unusual and arcane stories of its streets and people – from the mystics of Wellclose Square to the gory Radcliffe Highway murders, from Huguenot silk weavers to the horrors of the Black Death, from the heyday of the great docks to the gentrification of Spitalfields – revealing the underbelly of the city as never before.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

It’s a solid book with a lot of interesting pieces of information that help to give a solid overview of the history of the East End. Glinert is clearly passionate about his subject, which leads to some editorialising and preference for certain crime theories over others. However that doesn’t detract from the quality of the read.