PD Smith

Starred review

14 February 2012 | City | Post a comment

When you’ve spent the last cou­ple of years research­ing and writ­ing a book it’s always a rather nerve-rack­ing expe­ri­ence wait­ing for the first reviews. So I was delight­ed to read the first one for City which has just appeared in Pub­lish­ers Week­ly. It’s a starred review and this is a taster:

“Whether evok­ing the slums of Mum­bai, a 1905 din­ner par­ty at London’s Savoy Hotel, or the Aztec cap­i­tal of Tenochtitlán before Cortés con­quered it in 1521, Smith proves a live­ly, learned nar­ra­tor with a strong syn­thet­ic sense. Dis­cur­sive, imag­i­na­tive, and com­pre­hen­sive, his analy­sis of every­thing from the Hang­ing Gar­dens of Baby­lon to skate­board­ing and graf­fi­ti should be savored. Read in parts or whole, read­ers can wan­der and drift, and enjoy the ele­ment of sur­prise, just as in the explo­ration of a real city.”

You can read the review here.

Comments are closed.