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This Is London
- Life and Death in the World City
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
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This Is London
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Summary
Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2016, formerly known as the Samuel Johnson Prize.
This is the new London: an immigrant city. Over one-third of Londoners were born abroad, with half arriving since the millennium. This has utterly transformed the capital, for better and for worse.
Ben Judah is an acclaimed foreign correspondent, but here he turns his reporter's gaze on home, immersing himself in the hidden world of London's immigrants to reveal the city in the eyes of its beggars, bankers, coppers, gangsters, carers and witch-doctors. From the backrooms of its mosques, Tube tunnels and nightclubs to the frontlines of its streets, Judah has supped with oligarchs and spent nights sleeping rough, worked on building sites and talked business with prostitutes; he's heard stories of heartbreaking failure, but also witnessed extraordinary acts of compassion.
This is London explodes fossilised myths and offers a fresh, exciting portrait of what it's like to live, work, fall in love, raise children, grow old and die in London now. Simultaneously intimate and epic, here is a compulsive and deeply sympathetic book on this dizzying world city from one of our brightest new writers.
Critic reviews
"An eye-opening investigation into the hidden immigrant life of the city." (Sunday Times)
"Full of nuggets of unexpected information about the lives of others.... It recalls the journalism of Orwell." (Financial Times)
"Judah grabs hold of London and shakes out its secrets." (The Economist)
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What listeners say about This Is London
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- VDS
- 02-08-19
Well researched, truthful and brave
I loved reading all the information, truth of the hidden London which I suspected existed but never saw with my own eyes.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- M. McGuirk
- 23-12-21
A Painful Read
I can’t say I enjoyed this book, it was very painful listening but at the same time I couldn’t put it down. Ben Judah admits the complete transformation of our society and instead of reacting like a little Hitler (Farage, Douglas Murray etc) he dives in an explores the World of the new Londoners. It makes bleak reading these people have made very painful journeys and are carrying scars that are still having a knock on effect. My criticism of the book is that there was hardly a happy story in it at all, yet I know of many very happy successful immigrant families with tighter more loving communities than those of the native population.
Our Governments use of the immigrant card is disgraceful and eye openers like this book will hopefully do something to build bridges across a divided London.
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1 person found this helpful