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London belongs to me

By Norman Collins

(3)

| Paperback | 9780141442334

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Book Description

It is 1938 and the prospect of war hangs over every London inhabitant. But the city doesn't stop. Everywhere people continue to work, drink, fall in love, fight and struggle to get on in life. At the lodging-house at No.10 Dulcimer Street, Kennington, the buttoned-up clerk Mr. Josser returns home wiContinue

Critics

Norman Collins: London Belongs to Me

E.M. Forster said, “One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it.” In adjusting for this with Norman Collins’ 736-page epic London Belongs to Me, now reissued in Penguin Modern Classics, I may overcompensate and end up u ... (read full critics)

theasylum published on Fri, 10 Sep 2010

1 Review

London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins
First published 1945; this edition Penguin 2008
No tasteful old jacket here, I’m afraid – this is an old book, but a recent favourite. The cover photo looks north up Charing Cross Road, from the entrance to the old Astoria. Almost everything you can see has ... (continue)

London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins
First published 1945; this edition Penguin 2008
No tasteful old jacket here, I’m afraid – this is an old book, but a recent favourite. The cover photo looks north up Charing Cross Road, from the entrance to the old Astoria. Almost everything you can see has since vanished.
London Belongs to Me isn’t great art, but the definition of a Modern Classic is pretty broad these day; it’s a well-written, well plotted, big old-fashioned saga, built around the intersecting lives of the tenants of a Kennington lodging house, before and after the outbreak of the Second World War. If you enjoy RF Delderfield, or movies such as Millions Like Us, you’ll enjoy this chunky and unpretentious read.
The book was a massive success, and was swiftly filmed. Norman Collins was primarily a broadcaster – he created Dick Barton, was a television pioneer, and went on to join the board of ATV and later ITN.

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