"Beautiful Idiots and Brilliant lunatics" by Rob Baker

ISBN: 978-1-4456-5119-4 Amberley Books

"Beautiful Idiots and Brilliant Lunatics: A Sideway Look at Twentieth-Century London" by Rob Baker

For me, a city is something of brilliance.  I never cared for nature or the world outside of a city.  What I love is neon lights, people walking from there to here, cars, public transportation, and various cafes and restaurants.   Each city has a definite identity.  My favorite cities are Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, and the subject matter of this book "Beautiful Idiots and Brilliant Lunatics," London.  It is odd when I walk around London, I'm consistently looking for something from the past.   My main interest is London in the 19th and 20th century - and I have a pretty good collection of books on that subject.  My favorite, I think is this book.  It captures the mystery, the eccentricity, and life flowing through its streets.

The book covers everything from Mary Quant to woman nazis to Christine Keeler to underground gay culture.  Rob Baker has the eye of a historian, but the heart of a poet - and he takes the reader down various pathways to a world that is very much London, but also going against the grain as well.  

This superb book is based on Baker's incredible website "Another Nickel in the Machine."  I discovered this site by accident, and like any good accident, it led me to other worlds that are within London.   His amazing collection of photographs is reason enough to visit the site, but now he made a book, and it is equally great.

For those who love London, this book is a must, but even those who never been to that part of the world, yet find the urban world of great interest, will need to own and read "Beautiful Idiots."  

- Tosh Berman

"Jumpin' Jack Flash: David Litvinoff and the Rock n' Roll Underworld" by Keiron Pim

ISBN: 978-0-224-09812-0 Jonathan Cape Vintage

"Jumpin' Jack Flash: David Litvinoff and the Rock n' Roll Underworld" by Keiron Pim (Jonathan Cape Vintage, ISBN: 978-0-224-09812-0)

For me, what is there not to love about this book?  In 300 or so pages, I get a bit of Jewish London history of the East End, The Krays, The Rolling Stones, and a tale of an obsessive record / music collector who was also a criminal, Francis Bacon  & Lucian Freud, London Soho night life, as well as one of the leading influences of the great film "Performance."    Not only that, he was hired as an advisor for the film, and hinted that perhaps (or perhaps not) wrote some of the scenes for the film.   David Litvinoff is a figure who very much lived in the shadows of other people.  Yet, his presence, was greatly noted in the world of the Krays as well as to the world of Eric Clapton, Stones, and the swinging London 60s.   Litvinoff, was an invented character (of sorts) who was the bridge between the criminal life of London and the world of rock n' roll with a side trip to the cinema.  The author, Keiron Pim, did a fantastic job in putting together this biography that couldn't have been that easy.  

"Up The Junction" by Nell Dunn

"Up the Junction" by Nell Dunn

Reading Nell Dunn's collection of short stories "Up The Junction" is like being buried in a coffin full of 12''' Smiths record covers.  One can taste the lukewarm cream tea or a dark bitter right off the page.  For me, what these stories, published in 1963, do is  tell the tale, because of the rich London language and accents.   I know nothing of Dunn's life or where she came from, but I read that she came from a higher class, and chose to live in Battersea and Clapham Junction, which at the time of these stories was a total working class area of London.  "Up The Junction" is very location orientated, and through Dunn's eyes and writing, one gets the harsh life of its citizens who live in those two areas of London.  

Sex runs through these narrations of women and guys on the make, but it is not exactly 'happy' sex or even 'sexy' sex, but more of a way of passing time between working, and doing a touch of crime.   Without a doubt, a great London book, that is far away from the world of PG Wodehouse as possible.  Some of the images are shocking, for instance an aborted baby flushed down the toilet, but I don't feel it was done for shock purposes, but almost a journalistic touch.  

There is a lot of music in the background as well.  Before the Fab Four made their appearance, here you get snippets of pre-beatle pop lyrics with a mixture of American soul.  There's work, but then there is dancing, which becomes a mating call of sorts.  Without a doubt, "Up The Junction" is the largest and most intense "kitchen sink realism" set of stories ever. 

- Tosh Berman