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#1 2014-11-03 14:07:54
- CaptainMaddox
- Member
- From: UK
- Posts: 329
Book recommendation
Could anyone recommend any novels that are set in immediate post-war London to the fifties?
I've read Absolute Beginners btw.
I've been on a pre ww2 hype with 'London Belongs to Me' and 'Hangover Square' (Excellent read).
Also read 'Lonely Londoners'.
thanks!!
#4 2014-11-05 12:11:12
- Yuca
- Member
- Posts: 8568
Re: Book recommendation
The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks from 1960 is set on London, and I think was popular at the time. I tried to read it many years ago and had to give up as it was so badly written, but I recall it has some local colour, albeit probably with little relation to reality.
some sort of banal legitimacy
#5 2014-11-07 10:30:01
- formby
- Member
- From: Wiseacre
- Posts: 8359
Re: Book recommendation
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#6 2015-01-07 23:26:39
- Cagatey01
- New member
- Posts: 1
Re: Book recommendation
I'm surprised no one has responded to this, it hadn't gone unnoticed by me that G&H's has recently rebranded themselves, back towards the old model. A good thing IMCO?
Hopefully. Just have to see if it's branding or substance.
#8 2015-01-10 09:39:37
- stanshall
- Member
- From: Gilligan's Island
- Posts: 12991
Re: Book recommendation
"bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay"
#9 2015-01-10 10:08:48
- doghouse
- Member
- Posts: 5147
Re: Book recommendation
Hide thy infants, hide thy Lady, and hide thy husband, alas they art forcing sexual intercourse upon the entire populace. - Wm Shakespeare
#10 2015-01-10 11:11:24
- formby
- Member
- From: Wiseacre
- Posts: 8359
Re: Book recommendation
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#11 2015-01-10 12:42:57
- formby
- Member
- From: Wiseacre
- Posts: 8359
Re: Book recommendation
^
As an addendum to the above...
Several of the characters in the books are based on real life characters, or composites and actual events, albeit modified slightly. Real life characters appear also.
The central character in The Long Firm, the gangster Harry Starks is a composite of the Krays, even though they do appear in the novel.
Lord Teddy Thursby seems to be based on the MP (Lord)Bob Boothby.
He is introduced to Starks by Tom Driberg, who of course was an actual MP. Interesting character Driberg. The Private Eye journalist Francis Wheen wrote a biography of him a few years back.
60s London was a colourful place, in more ways than one...
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#12 2015-01-10 16:09:54
- stanshall
- Member
- From: Gilligan's Island
- Posts: 12991
Re: Book recommendation
remember reading about Driberg's having been on friendly terms with Jagger and supposedly giving him The Master and Margarita and urging him to run for Parliament ....
re Wolfe's contention that the single great '60s book had not been written ... I think his own great Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and The Pump House Gang are all contenders .....
I also like the Lenny Bruce and Sammy Davis, Jr. autobiographies .... Ed Sanders book on Charles Manson ..... Edie .....
another one of the great sixties books is The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones by Stanley Booth, originally titled Dance With the Devil ....
re the OP: Peter Cook: A Biography, by Harry Thompson .......
"bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay"
#14 2015-01-11 15:01:36
- formby
- Member
- From: Wiseacre
- Posts: 8359
Re: Book recommendation
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#15 2015-01-12 07:48:55
- An Unseen Scene
- Member
- From: Nottingham, UK
- Posts: 1268
Re: Book recommendation
The Beats Bums & Bohemians book series is focused specifically on post war London and includes the Terry Taylor & The Furnished Room.
Also Scamp by Roland Camberton, London Belongs To Me by Norman Collins, Adrift in Soho by Colin Wilson, although set pre-WWII I recommend Night & The City by Gerald Kersh (very good crime Soho book)