Readers' World: London - By the book

Everywhere, you'll find people reading in this city that seems like a page-turner itself. By Lara Williams

On the South Bank promenade, a man painted silver levitated in front of a crowd of tourists.

"How is that possible?" I asked my friend, a more seasoned London sightseer.

As we continued walking, she tried to explain but my gaze kept being drawn back to the spectacle. Against all rationality, I was willing to believe it was magic.

Lost in thought, I walked straight into an oncoming pedestrian. The jolt startled us both; he too seemed distracted. As I apologised, I noticed he was, rather apologetically, clutching a book: How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Shortly afterwards, I spotted a young woman marching briskly towards us. This time it was up to me to dodge a collision; her attention was firmly focused on the book she was reading. She glanced up, startled, as I brushed past with millimetres to spare. I offered what I hoped was an understanding smile; there is nothing shameful in enjoying reading about others' Disgrace.

A cloud slid in front of the sun and, across the river, St Paul's was suddenly bathed in soft light. I hurried to the edge of the boardwalk to snap a photo. As the cloud inched further across, a shadow fell across the walkway. A man reading on a nearby bench put down his book in order to zip up his jacket. Death on the Nile. Looking across the Thames, I shivered involuntarily.

I love reading. As much as I love the solitary pleasure of following the trail of words on a page, my enjoyment is inextricable from the books themselves. I love that an object, seemingly so mundane, can be the gateway to worlds that one could never imagine on one's own, can provide a matter-of-fact report on issues preoccupying millions of minds and can be an irrevocable testimony to the details of a life.

As I passed through London as a tourist, the city seemed to me to be an enormous book itself: a huge encyclopaedia detailing the astonishing history jigsawed into the landscape, a juicy page-turner of cosmopolitan gossip, a travel guide, both thrilling and overwhelming, bursting with inexhaustible itineraries and a poignant tale of hard work and little pleasure, propped up against the Tube windows and read by thousands of tired eyes. It was a book I had been loaned for a mere seven days and, despite my reading all day and late into each night, I knew I would have to hand it back unfinished, with great reluctance, at the end of my stay.

I was thus scarcely surprised when we stumbled across a small bookstall under a bridge on the South Bank. It appeared to be an entirely natural part of the cityscape; the tables of books rested against the background of the Thames, with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament visible in the distance. Having already passed what were evidently three very satisfied customers of this stall on our walk, we wasted no time in starting to explore the offerings. Only a book shop can make time a fictional concept; a short while later, we could not believe that an hour had already passed. But the rest of London beckoned, chapters and chapters still to be enjoyed.

Grubby DK Eyewitness Guide to London in hand and cameras ever at the ready, we, two minor characters appearing briefly in an epic tale, walked on once more. - © Lara Williams

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