The Boroughs of London - by Matt Brown (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A stylish collection of beautifully designed maps of each individual London borough, paired with quirky and fascinating facts about what you'll find there.

Cartographer and illustrator Mike Hall is renowned for his retro-themed print collection of boldly colored, highly detailed maps of every London borough, inspired by classic 1960s graphic design. Published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the boroughs' establishment, The Boroughs of London brings together all of Hall's London maps in one elegant volume to pore over.

But that's not all: alongside the maps is a wealth of authoritative but chatty commentary on each borough from Matt Brown, author of many Batsford books and acknowledged London expert. Packed with interesting facts, anecdotes, and trivia, the book provides an introduction to each borough and its constituent neighborhoods, as well as coverage of ten key places of interest per borough, including historic buildings, monuments, squares, parks, and street markets, accompanied by quirky illustrations. It all adds up to a fascinating snapshot of the boroughs' rich history and present-day diversity and culture.

From well-known, much-visited central London boroughs like Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to less famous, further-flung suburban areas such as Bexley and Hillingdon, this book provides endless revelations about one of the greatest cities of the world, borough by borough. It's the perfect book for London dwellers, London visitors, and London obsessives, history fans, cartophiles, and graphic design aficionados. Readers will want to visit every borough!

About the Author

Matt Brown is author of several books for Batsford, using his trademark humor and playfulness as tools to explore the world. He has served as editor and editor-at-large of Londonist.com, writing on topics as diverse as street art, politics, mapmaking, and science. With a deep love of trivia, he has written and hosted hundreds of quizzes, including events for the Museum of London and Manchester Science Museum, among many others. He lives in Hertfordshire and tweets at @mattfromlondon. Mike Hall has been fascinated by maps and architecture for as long as he can remember. Since graduating from the University of Westminster in 2008 he has developed a specialty in map illustration and architectural drawings. His work has appeared in magazines such as Esquire, Harper's Magazine, Road & Track, Time Out, Vanity Fair, and Which?, and in books published by Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster. He has also designed visitor maps for BBC Countryfile Live. Goodwood among others. Hall is a British freelance illustrator and designer based in Valencia, Spain.