A review by robynmaire
Londen literair: een reis door de literatuur van een stad by Anna Quindlen

2.0

* 2,5

“Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life.

And so we readers walk, and dream, and imagine, in the city where imagination found its great home.”


So I thought, since I probably won’t be able to actually go to London, because of Corona, I can still read about it, right.

I really liked the concept of this book, wanted to like the book so badly.
Maybe you could say it’s because of the translation that I didn´t like it, but it wasn’t the language that was the problem (it was good, I could tell even through the translation). No, my problem lay with the subject the author chose.
In my opinion, when I want to read a book about London, I don't have to know all these details about your personal life. And even though I liked the time spend with authors I knew or places I had been too, but they were very short. The author had a weird way of choosing which books to discuss, sometimes just mentioning a little of a book, other times spending multiple paragraphs on them. And when I haven´t ever heard of the thing you´re discussing for paragraphs, I get bored. The book felt rambly because there wasn´t a clear structure and tried to hard to be literary.