On Brick Lane
Rachel LichtensteinHamish Hamilton, pp. 352pp, £20,

I always enjoy visiting Brick Lane when I am in London and so this title jumped out at me while I was reading The Spectator of 25 August.

However after reading Roy Kerridges review I decided that this was a book I probably didn't need to read!

Us the link in the previous sentence to read the whole review but here are the first and final paragraphs:

Brick Lane, a long and ancient street in London’s East End, casts a spell of fascination on all who go there. To walk down Brick Lane is to take a voyage through the past, where Huguenot weavers of the 18th century meet fellow ghosts of Jewish anarchists, and their history is everywhere you look. My own family history touches lightly on the Lane, for my grandfather owned a workshop there in the 1920s, and my stepfather discovered an anarchist printing press hidden in a ruined house there in the 1950s.

And so to the book itself. Lichtenstein interviews a wide selection of charlatans, idiots, madmen and decent people, giving the same voice to all and never questioning the many lies they tell. This is a bleak book, inducing depression. When you close it, you can never find your place again, for all its grey sameness. Admittedly, I have led a sheltered life, but I am certain that this is the most badly written book I’ve ever seen.
Brick Lane remains, and you should go and see it for yourself.

He doesn't pull any punches!

I must say though that The Spectator is a wonderful magazione for the coverage it gives to the arts and in particular books. Other reviews in this latest issue include:

Nixon & Kissinger:Partners in Power Robert Dallek Allen Lane

The Secret Lives of Joseph Conrad John Stape Heinemann

Secrets of the Sea Nicholas Shakespeare Harvill Secker

Hotel du Dream Edmund White Bloomsbury

The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls Viking