Brothel in Pimlico

Rating:
Summary: A Bathroom Reader
Review: Since the real estate listings are so small they make perfect bathroom feeding fodder. I have this book on the back of the throne and break it out whenever I wish to spend a few minutes relaxing.

The listings are generally quite funny (although the humor can be a bit tame). Some references are obscure for Americans (as the real estate listed in in London).

Decent book if you like this sort of thing.

Rating:
Summary: True stories!
Review: This book's property reviews are startling in their candor. It's startling that one man dared be frank about the condition of the property he hoped to sell or rent--and hilarious that he included impressions of the former owners.

I bought it excitedly after having heard about it on the radio. Then, when I finally got it, I realized I'd basically heard the best ones on the radio--but they're buried in there for you to fine. And the less-than-best are still quite more interesting than anything you'd find in circulation today. Mr. Brooks has a great vocabulary and a wonderful way of reducing many a dynastic saga to a column-inch.

I have withheld the fifth star because of the printing rather than the "work". It seems the novelty of a narrowly shaped book was deemed necessary to further titillate the prospective reader-far more necessary than legibility. As other reviewers indicate, it's hard for the American reader to get some of the jokes unless she's spent some time in London and has a familiarity with the neighborhoods. Further, the abbreviations standard to a newspaper in another era, in another country in my case, are indecipherable. Each of these shortcomings could have been addressed with a map of the city and a key to the abbreviations and their meanings-either of which would be far preferred to the hasty and uninspired line drawings the publisher saw fit to include.