"What do writers do when they're not writing? They walk."
Gertrude Stein

"If you want to know London better, if you want to learn some things about the world's most cosmopolitan city that most people who spend their lives there never learn. I can think of no better investment than London Walks"  
The New York Times

The Complete Jack the Ripper    London Walks London Stories
by Donald Rumbelow                       by David Tucker & The Guides

           Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates                         
                   by Donald Rumbelow & Stewart Evans                

London Walks  by Anton Powell

The London Compendium & Literary London by Ed Glinert      

 London's Dead          The Literary Guide to London

by Ed Glinert                        by Ed Glinert                                   

          

East End Chronicles
by Ed Glinert 

West End Chronicles
by Ed Glinert

The London Football Companion

by Ed Glinert

Streets of the City   
by Judy Pulley

Exploring the Regent's Canal
by Michael Essex-Lopresti

Exploring the New River
by Michael Essex-Lopresti

The Green London Way
by Bob Gilbert

American Walks in London
by Richard Tames

City of London Past
by Richard Tames

Bloomsbury Past
by Richard Tames

Soho Past
by Richard Tames

The Indian Kitchen by Monisha (Monisha guides the A Slice of India walk. She's the most prolific London Walks author-guide.)

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And what does a London Walks guide read? Apart from our 20 or so "in-house" books - i.e., the clutch of wonderful London books written by colleagues, I mean. Well, just about everything about London that's going! But, by way of a wild card, I thought I'd let you in on my - David's - all time favourite London book. V.S. Pritchett's London Perceived. The best book ever written on London. For lots of reasons. One, Pritchett writes so beautifully. No suprise, that - he is, after all, one of the great prose stylists of the 20th century. But secondly - and perhaps even more to the point - Pritchett does in London Perceived what I wouldn't have thought was possible: he's captured, in words, the "spirit" of the place. Anything else? Yes, that matchless prose - London on the page - is accompanied by some wonderful b/w photographs. In one word, London Perceived is a joy.

And finally, a couple of wildcards. First, Adam's book on Scottish Football.
Fitba Gallimaufry: Essential and Obscure Facts from the History of Scottish Football by Adam Scott

And then there's Corelli Barnett's minor masterpiece, The Collapse of British Power. It's the first work in his great tetralogy, The Pride and Fall Sequence.I often talk about it on my Old Westminster walk, when we're in front of the house where the Anti-Appeasement movement got started. Usually introduce it by saying something like, "I suffer from an incurable case of bibliomania. Love to read. Read a lot. And probably the best history book I've read in the past decade is Corelli Barnett's The Collapse of British Power. Or words to that effect.

And if you don't want an autographed copy of one of them (and, look, no promises that every author-guide will always have the full complement with him* or her) - or don't want to do it the Amazon way - well, if you're in London, simply pop into one of London's splendid bookshops - e.g.:

Waterstone's at Trafalgar Square
Waterstone's on Hampstead High Street
Hatchards at 187 Piccadilly
Waterstone's at 203-206 Piccadilly
Blackwell's at 100 Charing Crosss Road

*Donald always has copies of The Complete Jack the Ripper with him on his Ripper walks.  Adam and I - David - usually have a few copies of London Walks London Stories along for the ride on our walks. And ditto a few of the other author-guides as well.