As a book lover, I've always dreamed of wandering the streets of London, tracing the footsteps of literary giants and exploring the haunts that inspired their stories. Sarah Milne’s *The Book Lover’s Guide to London* makes that dream feel achievable. This beautifully illustrated guide offers an in-depth look at the literary landmarks scattered throughout the city, from iconic pubs to quaint bookshops, and the lives of the authors who made London their muse.

The book is organized by neighborhoods, allowing readers to explore literary London district by district. Each section is packed with anecdotes, like the tale of a poet nearly losing a crucial manuscript in a Soho pub or Graham Greene’s close call with a bomb during WWII.

One of the book’s standout features is its gorgeous full-color photographs. These visuals not only complement the text but also bring to life the settings and stories discussed. They offer a vivid sense of place, whether you're reading about the pubs where Bram Stoker heard ghost stories that inspired *Dracula* or the Thames path where Nancy met her tragic fate in *Oliver Twist*.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book will transform your trip to London with the depth of research and the details included. You will not be able to look at the city again without really understanding the layers that are there if you look hard. Get off the regular sites and find some unique areas that are linked with the history and lovely writing of past residents. This book will open your eyes to a different London that will be as big of a thrill as the first time you visited.

If you are planning to visit London, or wants to, this is a very pleasant read. London housed many great author and it's great to learn a bit more about them and how they relate to the city.
The book shows great images of the city as well, which makes reading it even more delightful.

It's hard to think of a city with a more rich literary history than London. In Sarah Milne's The Book Lover's Guide to London, the author takes the reader to locations in each area of the city where London's writers (and even their famous characters) were known to frequent or live.

The book is divided nicely into specific areas for easy reference and features beautiful full-color photographs to go along with the text. Some authors are mentioned quite a lot, like Dickens, Woolf and Wilde -- perhaps a bit too much. It would have been nice to read about some lesser-known London authors too. Home addresses are mixed with pubs and other locations (of which quite a few still exist today).

The one thing I felt lacking in this book was how inconsistently the sections were set up. Some sections had a lot of text that seemed unrelated to the heading. For example, there's a section titled A.A. Milne with additional unrelated information about other authors (like Bram Stoker) -- this was a bit jarring. The book could have used some careful editing. However, most of the stories are interesting, so lovers of London literary history (and just London) will probably enjoy it.

MY RATING - 3

I love books like this, even just reading the titles and seeing the cover will see me learning forward to pick up a copy. I love the mixture of facts, fun and the images used to bring the different locations to life.

I am a huge book fan as anyone who knows me can verify so this book was always going to be one that caught my attention but it had so much more than I expected and it was literally jam packed with information!

I will be honest I started it one night and finished it the next morning and was then off making a list of the places I wanted to see that I had not done already so far - and for it to make me do that straight away, in that one act alone it shows why the book deserves the full 5 stars from me!

You can read it at home or use it as a guide book out and about on your travels - it was a book I thoroughly enjoyed, I loved learning more about the locations and settings and seeing the photos that helped bring some of the places to life too from what I have read in the past - I loved it and from cover to cover it was a fabulous read.

A fantastic literary tour of London.

This is a book I’ll be hanging onto for reference as a sort of travel guide for literary locations around London.

The book is organized by neighborhood and then into subheadings by the type of locale, be it a park, a pub, a historical site, housing, anything. I love that the author considered both literary landmarks from a fictional standpoint (locations used in books) and also from the perspective of literary history (where writers lived, worked, and socialized).

There’s a lot here to digest, but it’s easier to read narrative-style than your typical travel guide, and provides a fun immersive journey through literary London in addition to being something to hang onto for one’s next trip to the city.

I do wish the author had included nearby locations like Oxford (talk about rich literary history!), since a bookish tour of London always includes places like that for me, and it seems like there’s far too much material just outside the city limits to pass up.

This is an interesting travel guide to London aimed at bookworms. It is packed full of information on famous authors and books as well as general book-related tidbits. As with most books of this kind, it is better to dip into it rather than read it cover to cover as so many facts can become overwhelming and tedious all at once. I will certainly be consulting it before my next trip to London.

I want to thank @netgalley for my advanced readers copy. I thought this book was well done and gave so many fun facts about English writers as well as the locations where they wrote and/or lived. I hope to travel to London to check out some of the places mentioned here! Highly recommend!
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From Amazon— This book takes you on an area-by-area journey through London to discover the stories behind the stories told in some of the most famous novels, plays and poems written in, or about, the city.
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* Find out which poet almost lost one of his most important manuscripts in a Soho pub.
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* Discover how Graham Greene managed to survive the German bomb that destroyed his Clapham home.
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* Climb down the dingy steps from London Bridge to Thames path below and imagine how it felt to be Nancy trying to save Oliver Twist, only to then meet her own violent death.
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* Drink in same pub Bram Stoker listened to the ghost stories that inspired Dracula, the plush drinking house where Noel Coward performed, and the bars and cafes frequented by modern writers.
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* Tour the locations where London’s writers, and their characters lived, worked, played, loved, lost and died.
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This is the first literature guide to London to be fully illustrated with beautiful color photographs throughout the book. This unique book can be used a guidebook on a physical journey through London, or as a treasury of fascinating, often obscure tales and information for book lovers to read wherever they are

I loved this book a treasure trove for any book lover.Each time we visit London from the us my favorite thing to do is visit book stores from Charing Cross road and on&on.This is a book I willbtake with me on my next trip and give as a gift to my book loving friends.#netgalley #penn&sword

If I’m ever lucky enough to visit London, I’ll definitely be taking this book. As for now, I enjoyed all of the fun facts about the authors and the free trip to London via the photos and stories. It’s a fun read for book lovers!

This book is brilliant, filled with interesting stories about authors and the books they wrote whilst living in London.
I know a friend in America who will absolutely love this book.

My only complaint is that my "to be read" pile is now ALOT longer. lol

This book combines my two favourite loves, books and London!
It's quite a brave book to write as the amount of books that must be set in London must be huge. The large range of books that is mentioned in it's pages are mentioned as an index at the back of the book by authors surname.
The guide, covers a large range of authors from different genres and covers the classics and contemporary books alike. There is quite a lot of Charles Dickens nut to be fair, he wrote an awful lot of books both set in London and where he himself spent a lot of time living in London.
There is also a lot of detail on where authors lived and hung out in pubs getting up to all sorts!
As previously mentioned, I can't expect the author to cover every single book and author with a connection to London but I was hoping the Strike Books might have had a mention but Harry Potter and Kings Cross Station was given a mention.
As well as text, a few photographs were also included.
#TheBookLoversGuidetoLondon
#NetGalley

From the three years I lived in London, it has been my favourite city. I love to read books that draw me back into the streets I have wandered and the places I have been. Being a book lover as well, I was looking forward to reading this one. It would be fun to delve into the stories that were set here and the authors who wrote of this great and varied place.

That is why I am a little disappointed in the book. There was nothing wrong with it. There was just nothing that drew me into it. It looked at the various districts and covered a few writers and their works that pertained to that locality. Once in a while there was a slight spark in the writing but it was, for the most part, pedestrian. It did however have one personal surprise. It appears I lived a few doors away from one of the authors. I had not been aware of that at the time. But that was insufficient to win any extra points.

Three purrs and one paw up.

Beautifully presented guide to London and its writers, a handy guidebook for any book lover visiting the city, with plenty of anecdotes and trivia (although also with, unfortunately, a few errors) which will delight travellers both virtual and real.

The Book Lover’s Guide to London is an extensively researched guide to both authors and their literary characters’ connections to London. Organized by area, the book helpfully includes full-color photographs to supplement the text.

There are interesting stories here especially if you live in, or are planning to visit, London. It is also useful for authors using a particular area of London as a setting. However, there is a bit of a reference book tone. The entries are dry. They feel like an author’s note cards that haven’t been fully fleshed out to a finished book.

Overall, The Book Lover’s Guide to London is better for research than reading straight through. 3 stars.

Thanks to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

I love to visit places following books and authors and this was the perfect guide to London. There's a long list of authors, both classics and contemporary.
I loved to lose myself in the places and learning something new, designing new travels in the future.
Riveting, well researched and informative.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

An interesting and entertaining book for literary walks through London, organized by areas of the city. A lot of Dickens, which was to be expected. I would have liked to see additional maps with walking tours organized by author or genre instead of area. How accurate the research is in every case I cannot say. some tidbits were very entertaining others appeared a bit rushed or vague. It certainly invites the reader to do their own research before they embark on a literary tour through London.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in return for an honest review.

My favorite genre of book is armchair travel (a book that allows you to travel through the pages) and this book does that well. The photographs were an excellent addition and I would recommend this book for someone wanting to explore the literary side of London.

This is a great book. I love literature and London is fascinating, so what a treat! Learning things about the author’s, their stories and the areas was fun and interesting. I like the photographs and illustrations. I recomend this book.

Sarah Milne, The Book Lover’s Guide to London, White Owl, an Imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Thank you NetGalley and Pen & Sword, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

I was thrilled when my request for this book was granted. Perhaps the height of my expectations made my disappointment sharper. I feel that readers of this review need to take this into consideration as I must admit to being disappointed.

Briefly, taking a positive approach, The Book lover’s Guide to London does provide an extensive list of authors and locations that feature in fiction and characters that would be useful to any person, tourist, or relatively knowledgeable London visitor, in investigating London through literature.

However, I felt that there was too much dependence on familiar sources such as Dickens for the more colourful commentary; a greater variety of works and authors given such treatment would have been a welcome addition. At times the narrative lacked the warmth I associate with any discussion of books. Both authors and characters would have benefitted from a more engaging style so that they could be envisaged moving through the many locations covered in this book.

Geographic areas provide the structure, making this an ideal literary map for exploration. Writers who lived in and/or used them as locations for their fiction are featured in the relevant sections. Although at times this leads to repetition, the usefulness of this way of assembling the information overrides any problems here. Repetition can be a good memory jogger, after all. Geographic entities, Central London, North West London, North London, South London, South West London and West London, feature. Within these, suburbs and authors are named, so that, for example, Kensington and Earl’s Court highlight the authors, Beatrix Potter, Nancy Mitford, Virginia Wolf, William Makepeace Thackeray, and T.S. Eliot and novels in which Earls Court provides the location, include Andrea Levy’s A Small Island and Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover. An interesting comment on one of Agatha Christie’s novels is its location in the apartments in which she lived, Swan Court in Chelsea.

A comprehensive list of the authors and their works, and an extensive bibliography provide further reading. There is an abundance of photographs, which as well as being a tremendous source for understanding the authors’ or their characters’ lives are a pleasure to spend time contemplating.