PD Smith

Very pleased to see this descrip­tion of City in today’s Kirkus Reviews: “As excit­ing, sprawl­ing and mul­ti­far­i­ous as a shin­ing city on a hill.”

Blooms­bury Pub­lish­ing have also just sent me a link to a dig­i­tal sam­pler of the book, so you can judge for your­self. It’s online here.

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.

“In 1900, just 10% of the world’s pop­u­la­tion lived in cities. Today more than half of human­i­ty are city dwellers, and with each day that pass­es this pro­por­tion ris­es inex­orably. We are liv­ing in a tru­ly urban age. Glob­al cities have become the engines of the mod­ern econ­o­my and deci­sions made in cities touch the lives of every per­son on the plan­et. The chal­lenges faced by the world today, from cli­mate change to pover­ty and inequal­i­ty, are con­cen­trat­ed in cities and often played out on their streets, in demon­stra­tions and riots. The city has become the the­atre of our anx­i­eties as well as our hopes.”

My review of Liv­ing in the End­less City, edit­ed by Ricky Bur­dett and Deyan Sud­jic, and The New Black­well Com­pan­ion to the City, edit­ed by Gary Bridge and Sophie Wat­son, is in the cur­ren­t Times Lit­er­ary Sup­ple­ment (Feb­ru­ary 10, 2012, p 24). I have post­ed a some­what longer ver­sion of the pub­lished review here.

Today, the post­man deliv­ered a box con­tain­ing proof copies of the US edi­tion of City: A Guide­book for the Urban Age (Blooms­bury Press). It’s a real­ly great feel­ing, after so many months and years of work, to final­ly have a bound copy in your hands — even an uncor­rect­ed black & white proof…

The full-colour hard­back of City is due in shops in May (UK) and June (US).

“I seek in this book to cel­e­brate Chungk­ing Man­sions in its extra­or­di­nary and large­ly har­mo­nious cul­tur­al diver­si­ty. It is an amaz­ing place, one that should be laud­ed in Hong Kong and the world over.”

My review of Gor­don Math­ews’ fas­ci­nat­ing book Ghet­to at the Cen­ter of the World: Chungk­ing Man­sions, Hong Kong is in this week’s TLS. You can read it online here.