kaberett: Photo of a pile of old leather-bound books. (books)
kaberett ([personal profile] kaberett) wrote2015-12-23 11:14 pm

... I just opened my present from the in-laws in order to write a thank-you note and now I'm crying

It's a facsimile copy of Nairn's London, bought from the Graun bookshop because of course, and the blurb is
'A record of what has moved me between Uxbridge and Dagenham', Nairn's London is an idiosyncratic and intensely subjective meditation on a city and its buildings. Including railway stations, synagogues, abandoned gasworks, dock cranes, suburban gardens, East End markets, Hawksmoor churches, a Gothic cinema and twenty-seven different pubs, it is a portrait of the soul of a place, from a writer of genius.


The Graun review features the line It is a wonder in itself. Compact – 280 pages with index – and yet enormous in scope, it is a detailed vision of a city, and what a city should be like, that has never been bettered.

They've met me three times.
redbird: full bookshelves and table in a library (books)

[personal profile] redbird 2015-12-24 03:35 am (UTC)(link)
Aw. That suggests that they may be your kind of people, and got you that book not so much because they knew it was right for you, but because they loved it and want to share it.