“A rich and exuberant kaleidoscopic portrait of a great, messy, noisy, daunting, inspiring, maddening, enthralling, constantly shifting Rorschach test of a place. . . . Delightful. . . . In Taylor’s patient and sympathetic hands, regular people become poets, philosophers, orators.”--New York Times Book Review
Acclaimed writer and editor Craig Taylor spent years traversing every corner of London, getting to know the most interesting of its residents—the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub door attendant, a mounted soldier of the Queen's Life Guard. Now, in Londoners, this diverse cast of characters—rich and poor, young and old, 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. With candor and humor, these voices paint a vivid, epic, and wholly original portrait of twenty-first-century London, scripting the autobiography of one of the world's greatest cities.
“Remarkable. . . . Essential. . . . Enlightening. . . . Londoners offers an impression of the city’s people, a way to understand their motives and fears and the simmering rush. It captures the combination of quiet desperation and boundless optimism required to live [there].”--San Francisco Chronicle
“Whether or not you know London, whether or not you love it, this book is for you. . . . A polyphonic hymn to the Big Smoke.”--Newsday
“Fascinating. . . . Makes you want to join Taylor in “The London Chase.”--Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Engaging. . . . 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
“Impressive. . . . A scintillating oral history.”--Newark Star Ledger
“From Brixton to Piccadilly Circus, a fascinating oral history of contemporary London.”--Chicago Tribune
