Whenever I find myself walking around London, I spend half the time looking up rather than ahead. Why? Because London is so rich in cultural landmarks, in the form of blue plaques, that you can easily miss. For example, a few years ago I happened to glance up above a pizzeria, and for the first time noticed a plaque that read “Dr Johnson lived here from …”.

If you’re like me in this regard, this book should provide a measure of safety. Instead of looking skyward, you can check in advance to see if the part of London you will be travelling to has anything to offer as far literary figures are concerned. I should be very surpised if you are disappointed.

You can use the book in two main ways. One is to browse through the entries for a particular area. So, turning to the pages on Soho, Chinatown and Leicester Square, I find the following:

• Information about the area itself.

• A list of notable bookshops and museums, with a bit of blurb about each one. This, by the way, is a veritable cornucopia of delights, although we can’t enjoy them during the coronavirus lockdown. Let’s hope that these shops still exist once this is over.

• A list of places. Taking the first one as an example, the Café Royal opened in 1865, and was the place to find Oscar Wilde, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf and others.

• Some quotations from writers.

• Places to have a drink.

• Some photographs.

• Lost periodicals.

The second way of using the book is to peruse the index for particular writers. I’ve been re-reading the poetry of John Donne lately, and I note that there are three entries for him, such as where he got married (in secret).

Perhaps this has given you a flavour of the nature of this book. It’s great for dipping into, and I’ve discovered a huge amount about writers and London that I didn’t know.

My only criticism is that some pages are printed in black ink on a dark red background. It may look attractive, but it makes the text extremely difficult to read. If they decide to issue a second edition, I hope they change that colour scheme.

Apart from that, I highly recommend it if you love London, and are interested in the places associated with well-known writers dating from centuries ago to the present day.