Residents tell their stories in a “kaleidoscopic portrait of a great, messy, noisy, daunting, inspiring, maddening, enthralling, constantly shifting” city (The New York Times Book Review).
Londoners is a fresh and compulsively readable view of one of the world’s most fascinating cities—a vibrant narrative portrait of the London of our time, featuring unforgettable stories told by the real people who make the city hum. Craig Taylor has spent years traversing every corner of the capital, getting to know the most interesting Londoners, including the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub doorperson, a mounted soldier of the Queen’s Life Guard at Buckingham Palace, and a couple who fell in love at the Tower of London—and now live there. With candor and humor, this diverse cast—rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant, men and women (and even a Sarah who used to be a George)—shares indelible tales that capture the city as never before.
“Fans of Studs Terkel’s insightful oral histories will be delighted to discover a successor in Taylor . . . His book brings London to life as it is—ever changing, ever eternal, ever unforgettable.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“A treasury of compact vignettes from voices that are rarely heard but come closer to the truth of the city than any travel brochure or official document.” —Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
“Delightful. . . . In Taylor’s patient and sympathetic hands, regular people become poets, philosophers, orators.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Remarkable.” —San Francisco Chronicle