Lights Out for the Territory: 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London

If you enjoyed Peter Ackroyd's 'biography' of London, then you will want to read this account of modern London. Sinclair is a great walker and he describes a series of journeys across the contemporary city which few others have ever taken. This gives him the chance to comment on the way. This book is essentially a modern meditation and it's wonderful. Extended poetry. This is the best of modern English literature. Don't miss it!

Angela Carter, M.John Harrison, Peter Ackroyd, Michael Moorcock -- and Iain Sinclair. All of them have made it their business to investigate the myths and apocrypha which they believe are the psychic structure of London. Whether it's Carter's Wise Children,Harrison's Travel Arrangements, Moorcock's King of the City or Ackroyd's Dan Leno, they all display the same obsessions. What's remarkable is that all are very different. Sinclair's is the only book which is factual, but it fits so smoothly into fiction like Downriver and Radon Daughters that sometimes you can hardly tell. There is an intellectual rigour, an original eye, a beautiful poet's precision -- and the low-down on some high life characters. I can't recommend this wonderful, rich book enough. Great value, too!

This book is of interest to anyone who has ever lived in London. Using mainly intuition, Sinclair takes us on a psychogeographical open-top bus journey down the city's darker alleys, parks and thoroughfares. (In)famous Londoners are deconstructed. My only gripe would be the lack of referencing to Dickens, who has been there before, and knew all about it.

Lights Out for the Territory is a dense reading of 90's London. More informative than a dozen tourguides, it follows the author's wanderings as he inscribes his path on the urban landscape, while reading the signs and people and stories encountered on the way. It captures that simultaneous feeling of madness, magic and decay, of history and secrets just beyond your reach, that comprise a goodly percentage my antipodean memories of London living. It traverses the mysterious and the banal, art and death, Howard Marks and Frankie Fraser. Lets hope there will be a sequel. Read and enjoy.