London Made Us cover art

London Made Us

A Memoir of a Shape-Shifting City

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London Made Us

By: Robert Elms
Narrated by: Robert Elms
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About this listen

Robert Elms has seen London change beyond all imagining: the house he grew up in is now the behemoth that is the Westway flyover, and areas once deemed murder miles have morphed into the stuff of estate agents' dreams, seemingly in a matter of months.

Elms takes us back through time and place to myriad Londons. He is our guide through a place that has seen scientific experiments conducted in subterranean lairs, a small community declare itself an independent nation and animals of varying exoticism roam free through its streets; a place his great-great-grandfather made the Elms' home over a century ago and a city that has borne witness to epoch - and world-changing events.

'This is a shape-shifting city, happy to shed its skin of brick and stone for steel and glass, to jettison the unprofitable unsentimentally, to abandon the unfashionable and discard the undesirable. London is a giant kaleidoscope, which is forever turning. Take your eye off it for more than a moment and you're lost.'

©2019 Robert Elms (P)2019 Canongate Books Ltd England Memoir Thought-Provoking

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All stars
Most relevant
I can’t recommend highly enough.
This is my London too - many of the same faces names haunts and pleasures.
Robert Elms hits a perfect pitch - avoiding nostalgia and describing places in time perfectly.
Bravo.

Perfectly pitched ….. absolutely brilliant.

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An enjoyable ramble about town with more than one eye on the historical detail, of the place

An engaging and compelling listen

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Excellent history of London, covering lots of aspects. I would highly recommend even as a Geordie.

Really Enjoyable!

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This is the most fabulous memoir of a talented man in so many ways. Having lived in the same area of NW London, I whole heartedly agree with his brilliant descriptions of the old and the new. The carefree times through the 60s, 70s etc. and how the the present day compares is written by a knowledgeable wordsmith. Even if you don’t live in London, it’s a great read and it will stir up some memories you lived through or heard about.

LONDON MADE US- it certainly reminded me of the good and not so good London.

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If you're a Londoner or a Greater Londoner of a similar age, this book will bring the memories flooding back.

A great listen,

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