'Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City' by Anna Quindlen

Non-fiction - paperback; National Geographic Books; 176 pages; 2006.

Anna Quindlen is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling novelist from America. She grew up reading books set in London but did not get to travel to the 'city of her childhood imaginings' until she was in her forties. This book tells of her visit and her impressions as she trod the very same streets in which many of her literary heroes -- both fictional and real -- had also trod. What results is a touching love letter to literary London.

I have to admit that most of the books that Quindlen namechecks throughout this delightful essay -- for that is what it is, rather than a book -- were unfamilar to me. Sure, I knew their names and the authors -- how could anyone not know Charles Dickens or Elizabeth Bowen or the Forsyte Saga? -- but my tastes tend towards the more modern, namely late 20th century and early 21st century, as opposed to the classics, but this did not diminish my enjoyment of Imagined London.

Of course, I am a resident of this amazing city, and when I first arrived here back in the summer of 1998 I was more intent in seeking out famous buildings (The Palace of Westminster, St Paul's Cathedral) or musical landmarks (Brixton Academy, the Camden pub where Blur used to hang out, the zebra crossing that features on the Beatles Abbey Road album cover) rather than places where novels were set.