I've enjoyed a lot of it and the rest should be read with that in mind. I can imagine a better oral history type thing but it'd be hard to do and I think a lot of my problems are general problems I'd have with anything of this type. Some of the stories are genuinely affecting and are the sort of thing you could make a novel of - just surviving, the problems they've been through. There are a few people talked to who you'd never think of just walking around London. Even some of the people who came across as total turds were interesting, just for revealing how some people think and common views of Londoners, Englishness etc. If you think the idea of a collection of personal stories from a wide range of Londoners sounds interesting, get it.

However, there are some issues which run through it that mean I keep putting it down, being frustrated, wishing I wasn't reading about these particular people. A lot of these stories feature people talking about and for other people. There's a lot of casual bigotry going on. So many people buy into these myths that if people REALLY want to live OK, they can. So much is from the perspective of people not worrying about how to keep going. You just wish for more "alternative" voices, people who have trouble living in London, people who are against certain mainstream positions. There definitely are quite a lot but the sort of fake-interesting people dominate. Sometimes I couldn't believe people actually approved the stuff they said. Some people are just giant arseholes, which I guess is important to get an accurate picture. Some examples

- Teacher calling her class "crazies" and being upset that she's been attached to the lowest set, complaining about other teachers being lazy
- A "commentator" who said that it was right for Wonderbra adverts to go up outside a mosque and pathetic for "Islamists" to object because it's a liberal democracy where difference is respected who then goes on to complain about people speaking different languages, clustering in communities around the country their families came from, etc. The only difference allowed is within a very narrow scope, apparently.
- Club bouncer who says they often reject Eastern Europeans because "through experience" they've found they're generally bad.
- Commuter who rightly complains about the incredibly dirty trains but also complains about everyone else who gets the train with her, including children etc with apparently no compassion.
- The prologue to the book was someone now living in South Africa who described London as a city for people with Asperger's syndrome. It's kind of a personal subject for me but it was mostly just pathetic and laughable and it's kind of embarrassing that anyone thought that was appropriate for the first thing people read, no less.

There's no views from people in these "Islamist" communities, obviously no right of reply or anything, it just feels like these statements expose big gaps in coverage and the judgement passed without comment are frustrating, I honestly don't blame Taylor much for this - I think it's difficult to get the balance right and find people who actually want to talk in detail about more difficult stuff. I imagine there's also a feeling of wanting to make an "interesting" book which has more dramatic/unusual stories so some stuff which is important but normal falls by the wayside. Sometimes I wish he'd step in and give more of his opinion - although the few asides he does write are often snarky and I didn't appreciate that. My annoyance here is also definitely partially down to my political views - obviously it's frustrating to read people saying things that you don't just disagree with but you know to be wrong but there was also stuff which was understandable that I disagreed with. Some of the people just really rubbed me the wrong way but I can't put my finger on it - maybe a sort of condescending attitude from them or something.

What I mean by fake-interesting are these people who are blaggarts, who've done things but anyone could have done them given their starting situation, that sort of thing. There's someone called Smartie who's some sort of stockbroker turned DJ and he's absolutely obnoxious and constantly goes on about himself but for some reason he's given 3 sections, which is annoying. Some of the things which are interesting but not that sort of interesting are given short-shrift - for example someone who looks after bees only gets 3 pages, we don't see a wide section of jobs which are essential to London (no bus or tube drivers).

I find it interesting that so many people thought the book was too negative because it never came across that way to me at all. There were negative bits and positive bits, various bits were romanticised, but there was at least an attempt to give a variety of views and not succumb to a "good old London what a great place" thing even if it didn't always succeed. There is obviously a lot of romanticism but I think it just happens when people are talking in this context - it's hard to avoid and he didn't indulge it too much. I appreciated that a lot. I felt that even when people had a lot of trouble with London, the voices chosen often appreciated London as a whole. It's not complete positivity but as a whole it's optimistic.

It strikes me how even those who moan about "community" hardly ever mention even talking to other people. There's a strong undercurrent of isolation running through the stories, even though it's only rarely made explicit. To study the stories as a kind of snapshot of current culture, of how we interact with each other, would be interesting. I had a lot of thoughts about this stuff. There's a lot of side comments on things like gentrification.

Ultimately though I enjoyed it a lot and even the people I thought were awful were mostly interesting. The stuff above is a bit exaggerated probably, it's just a shame that a few bolshy people made the book less enjoyable than it should be. The theming is perfect and it makes the ending bittersweet in a great way. It feels like a good summary of London. ( )

Wow. I laughed, I cried, I empathised. Every thought and feeling I've ever had about London, give or take, is expressed by someone in this book. I don't know if people who don't have a very strong connection with London would get it but I want this book forever. ( )

Kind of obsessed with London lately. This starts out great, very much like classic Studs Terkel. Gets kind of repetetive by the end. But still quite readable, a slice of London as seen by its citizens. ( )

Londoners feels to me like a big book. I was rather surprised to find that the print book is only 422 pages! For me, it felt like it took quite some time to listen to the audiobook (probably because I went away in the middle of it and wasn’t listening very much) but it’s also big in terms of ideas. To talk to a wide group of Londoners, from the new to the old, the lovers, the haters and all those in between is a huge effort. It must have taken ages for Craig Taylor to find people to be interview, conduct the interview and then transcribe and edit. It’s an ambitious project that captures so many different people who share a city.

The story is a collection of these interviews, divided into themes like arriving and leaving, marriage and death. It’s pretty easy to pick up where you left off (particularly if it’s at the end of an interview), so the audiobook is particularly good for short bursts. There is also a collection of narrators who are all brilliant at different accents and speech cadences. (I had to check that one of the narrators wasn’t my colleague, she sounded exactly the same!) My only niggle was that I knew some of the narrators really well by the end and it was occasionally hard to disconnect from the person they were playing in the previous vignette.

There were some really interesting people that Taylor spoke to. I think one of my favourites was the man looking after lost property on the Tube – it sounds like he does a brilliant job and really cares about it. He also had some classic tales to tell – like someone calling and asking what the chances were of a cake they left on the Tube being found uneaten! The pilots talking about taking off and landing too was fascinating. Marriage celebrants, grief counsellors, people going through supermarket bins, barristers, antique shop owners…all real people with many stories to tell. Some people I think could have had their own book of tales!

Some of the interviews weren’t my cup of tea – people complaining about others on their commute (I hear you, but deal with it) and some just went on a bit long. Other people had a viewpoint that appeared prejudiced or narrow minded at time, but it takes all sorts to make a city.

I think listening to this book really helped it to come alive for me. Worth a listen if you’re a Londoner or interested in the everyday thoughts of a range of people in a city.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

Overall, an interesting and perceptive anthology of various Londoners' views of their city. Most of the oral histories give at least some insights into the nature of living and working in London, which comes off as a busy, vibrant multicultural metropolis that still attracts people from around the country. There were a few stories I didn't like, as they were overwhelming critical, in a very overgeneralized way -- and, because of that, they said much more about the speakers than about where they lived. (It's an odd choice on Taylor's part to open his book with one such negative piece.) Still worth the read for those interested in London, if not up to Studs Terkel's best. ( )