I'm really enjoying this so far. I wouldn't call it a good 'story' because every new chapter focuses on a descendent of the character in the previous chapter - which may have been 400 years earlier, so it doesn't have the continuity of plot or character development that I love. BUT - this is a great book to read for the history of London. It's really fascinating to consider how old it is and the upheavals it's gone through. The other part I love is the word development. It explains how many of our common English words came into being.

FINALLY! I had to lay this aside so many times but have finally finished. I really enjoyed this for the historical element. ( )

''It was amazing how quiet London could be. Not only in the big parks, but in great walled enclosures like the Temple or in the old churches like St Bartholomew's, there was a silence that seemed to take one back for centuries. Even here in the City the office buildings rising high over the narrow streets provided a screen so that the sounds of London's busy traffic could scarcely be heard. She glanced up at the sky. Still blue.'' ( )

I’ve owned this book, the First American Edition, since 1997. It took me over 2-1/2 decades to finally get to it.

I was disappointed in this book. I’d expected to give it 5 or at least 4 stars.

2-1/2 stars rounded up because I suspect my mood influenced by enjoyment of it and because I enjoyed enough about it that it was a bit more than just okay for me. I kind of liked it.

I thought it would be a page-turner but for me it was not. I struggled to pick it up and didn’t have that hard a time putting it down. I was eager to be done with it. I’m glad that I stuck with it but I barely liked it, true of both when I was reading and now that I’ve finished. I’ll probably keep the book though.

It was sheer stubbornness that made me want to finish. That and thinking that I’d enjoy the last few chapters the most and I sort of did.

The chapters are: 1. The River; 2. Londinium; 3. The Rood; 4. The Conqueror; 5. The Tower; 6. The Saint; 7. The Mayor; 8. The Whorehouse; 9. London Bridge; 10. Hampton Court; 11. The Globe; 12. God’s Fire; 13. London’s Fire; 14. St. Paul’s; 15. Gin Lane; 16. Lavender Hill; 17. The Crystal Palace; 18. The Cutty Sark; 19. The Suffragette; 20. The Blitz; 21. The River.

The maps are: a general map shows southeast England and some of mainland Europe and the English Channel and the North Sea; Roman and Saxon London; Medieval and Tudor London; Georgian and Victorian London; and one of London’s Village and Suburbs.

The characters/family trees have a timeline double page showing those who appear in each chapter.

This story should have been my cup of tea given that London is my number one bucket list destination and I’ve always been interested in the city & area. Also, I’m fascinated with genealogy/family trees and now each generation affects the next one(s) and this multigenerational story does a good job of showing this.

What I liked:

I loved how it started with the area prior to human habitation.

I loved how it ended with an archeological dig and its particular participants.

I appreciated the maps.

I did care about a few of the many characters and I delighted in seeing how each generation impacted on the next generations.

I loved the history.

I liked seeing how life was for average people in various time periods. I think that a good job was done with this.

What was neither here nor there:

The characters/families timeline was definitely helpful but if used properly (and I did that) it contained a lot of spoilers such as who got married to which people and who their children, grandchildren, etc. were, and also when their line ended in some cases.

The author seemed to do thorough research and I learned a lot but I’d have much rather read a nonfiction book covering the same content.

I tried an audio version to read simultaneously with the hardcover but listened to only maybe a quarter of it. It didn’t help me concentrate or focus or get more enjoyment from the book.

I did look up some of the real history and the real people as I was reading the novel. I was motivated to want to do that.

What I didn’t like:

The premise was interesting but only a very few characters were memorable for me. So little time is spent with most of them and for me they were sometimes hard to remember and at times I was confused and I felt as though I didn’t get to know most well enough to feel fully invested in their lives. Most were forgettable once I left their chapters.

I thought the fictional characters would bring history to life. They often do and I’m sure they were meant to here but while that was sometimes the case I don’t think it worked well enough of the time.

There was too much reliance connecting the characters down the generations on genetic physical descriptions.

I think many of the characters could have been better drawn. I hate when real people/events such as Beckett and Chaucer and King Henry VIII and the Mayflower and King Charles I and II and Pepys and James the Duke of York and Sir Christopher Wren and others are too involved with fictional characters. I realize this is done to flesh out a narrative and I know this is done to some extent in nonfiction too but I really didn’t like it in this story.

It was a slog to read it. I love long books when I am engrossed in them but that didn’t really happen for me with this book. It was easy to put down and I wasn’t yearning to pick it up.

It is a heavy book and hard to read with it sitting on my chest. This is an instance when an e-book might have been better than a paper book.

What might have been different:

I think if I’d read this book with my book club or with a friend or friends I’d have liked it more than I did. Discussing it with other readers chapter by chapter would have made reading it more fun and more absorbing.

I’ve been struggling to read and to find the right book for my mood so if I’d been in a different frame of mind I might have loved or at least liked this book more than I did.

All this said about how underwhelmed I was with this book I do want to read the author’s book about New. York. I’ve always been interested in the Indigenous people of the area and its early immigrants and I spent a couple of formative times there and I think I would enjoy reading about its history. I do wonder if I had spent time in London and knew it well whether I might have enjoyed this book more than I did. ( )

Great idea, long read. Interesting if you know and like London. ( )

Excellent ( )