This book is full of whimsical views of London. I enjoyed reading lore about each place's origin and how things changed over time.

Loved the artwork and illustrations ...This book features elaborate, tall tales from London, capturing the city's spirit and being genuinely done from the heart, despite some being made up and others true. Truly a great read for Londoners who travel around this city.
Thanks to Netgalley and Vic Lee for a complimentary copy for my honest opinion.

Loved seeing London and reading about London in a different way, more unique. It is an interesting book to have in the library.

A beautifully illustrated volume of famous streets in London with a keen eye on details as well as interesting facts and stories, some well known, some completely new to me.

If you are interested in the book, definitely buy a print version as the ebook has quite a few pages where the font is just to small to be readable.

Talking about fonts: 5-6 less different fonts would have helped to get rid of the overly cartoonish feel.

Also a frame connecting the bits and pieces would have given a nicer round up.

This was fun. Loved the illustrations! Maybe even more than the stories and I loved those too. I can’t wait to see more by those author/artist. This would make a great gift!

N,S,E & W. Vic Lee has captured the streets of London seldom seen atop a Red Bus or in the back of a Black Cab.

Told with love and conveyed with his distinctive pen and ink style the author brings ‘colour’, creates imagination and stimulates interest in the familiar and less well known districts of our capital city.

Literally it is a work of work.

This is freehold craft of the highest quality. Often motivated by commissions he has forged a collection celebrating London. Caught in moments or time.

I love the detail and humour in both words and pictures; springing from historical foundations to reach taller than the buildings themselves. The words chosen are often like poetic prose and immerse you totally into each area of the metropolis.

COVID Diaries brought Vic’s work to my attention. This new volume based on London has underscored the appreciation I have for his work and his unique skill set. I cannot grow tired of regarding his books. His work live and breathe detail and overflow with information one look cannot fully take in on first sight.

It is a book all Londoners would willing wish to own and for those of us who visit as tourists, this amalgamation of villages and green spaces is a volume / guide many would want to keep and remember.

Above all it is a book about communication and how cities grow. About sharing stories that define who we are and where we’re from regardless that in the retelling facts blur with memory and where imagination is a ingredient of any good account and when enduring joy and sense of community is the desired result.

Not a ton of text within the book, but I thoroughly loved looking through all of the illustrations of London. Since I received the ebook, I would imagine the streetscapes and illustrations would be even better in a physical book! After visiting London this past September, I enjoyed the book even more as it reminded me of walking through the streets and areas there.

Thanks to NetGalley for the copy!

Vic Lee is obviously talented and possesses a strong, narrative view point. The style reminded me greatly of the zines of the 90s around the music scene. Is that a good thing, you could ask? It depends. The page is crowded and the information fairly races at you from the page. I'd call it the book equivalent of a strobe light. It's not really my bag anymore but I can't deny that it's doing something and it's doing it with every inch of the page.

This review was originally published on NetGalley.com. I was given an ebook freely by NetGalley and the book’s publisher in return for a voluntary and honest review.

Vic Lee’s London: True Tales and Dubious Stories
By Vic Lee

This book of artwork and small stories and tidbits is magical. I’ve been to London three times and reading this book brought a smile to my face. The drawings hold a charm that a photograph can’t find. It captures the centuries old city as each street holds historic buildings next to modern.

In the introduction Vic Lee is pretty open to the fact that the stories he shares are more likely made up than real but like any strange you might overhear in the Underground or passing you on the street it adds flavor.

It’s the perfect book for lovers of the city, architecture and the way society morphs through the decades. It makes me want to book a trip back to London.

Since I have never been to London, I think the books content was lost on me. I read the ebook version (thanks to NetGalley) and found the illustrations intriguing by hard to follow the "tale" with the picture. I will be willing to look at it again after my spring trip to London to see if I can recognize the streets along with the stories that make up its history.

Princess Fuzzypants here: I get many books to read and review and they come to me as e-books. A simple story and it does not matter but sometimes I come across books that I enjoy greatly but wish I had read in a paper format. There are just so many lovely sketches in the book of various streets around London. It does an admirable job of finding ones north, south, east and west. The sketches deserve to be seen up close as the detail that I was able to make out was impressive.

There is not a lot of text in the book but what is there is entertaining. A little history, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, it goes from it’s origin to its current state. Then there are tidbits where the author has taken something of its past and embellished such as where the name originated. It also talks about why it deserves a place in the book. It was informative and fun and I am sure I would have enjoyed it all the more had it been in a physical form.

Still and all, for fans of London, as I am, this is a delightful addition to anyone’s library. Five purrs and two paws up.

Fantastically detailed drawings of London neighborhoods, along with some interesting tidbits about lesser-known history around those areas. Unfortunately, I felt the syntax was fairly confusing in some places and it was not always easy to read. It was hard to tell whether this was a deliberate choice or not. This book would probably be most interesting to those who have firsthand experience walking these areas of London, people who have their own mental pictures of the way a street looks at any given time and can compare it to the moments in time captured in this book.

This is one of those books that are a sort of appetizer when you read them in digital: they're gorgeous but you would need the paper book to appreciated them at best
That said I loved what I saw and would like to buy this book.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I rather enjoyed this, especially as I've been to London and it holds a dear place in my heart. The art style was absolutely stunning, and I loved the simplistic feel of the black and white, but it was truly complicated and beautiful art (along with calligraphy). I do think some of it was hard to read on the galley, and some of it I just didn't have a connection to since I only visited London and didn't really get to explore a whole lot. It would be perfect to read BEFORE visiting though, as it gives such a unique look about the city.

Vic Lee, as seen on tea towels in the Tate, and on Instagram, and famous for his black and white prints and artwork, has bought together his series of prints based on London streets for this book. The prints are combined with short pieces of writing about each area, writing that I would call poetry, writing that should be read aloud in a London accent. I am a fan of his work, and think this book is a must for anyone who loves to explore the streets of London.

I love London. The culture, the people; the city itself. So of course I had to pick this up. I loved this so much: I had so much fun looking into London, I was the happiest. Highly recommend.

I really enjoyed seeing more of London than the average book offers. The author truly brings the city to life with all the great and not so great aspects that includes.

I felt compelled to read this book after reading that it included Walthamstow Village, where my father grew up. When I was growing up, he talked about his life in Walthamstow, how he was playing soccer with one of his friends when he heard that Britain was at war with Germany and many more stories that made his birthplace come alive for me here in America. Sadly, my dad recently passed away, but I know he would have loved this book. It captures the essence of these places, the history, legends and the people who live there. This isn’t the tourist bureau, guidebook view of London as the perfect place to visit, it’s the real city, with all its quirks, warts and wrinkles

I received a free copy of Vic Lee's London, by Vic Lee, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.Vic Lee is a vert talented artist, I really enjoyed the neighborhood's in London, and the tidbits of information he gave on them.