Here’s a rarity for me: two reviews in one post! Both of these books are from the Opinionated London Guides series from Hoxton Mini Press.

An Opinionated Guide to London Museums, by Emmy Watts

Emmy Watts’ An Opinionated Guide to London Museums is a pretty well-designed little volume. There’s a map in the front with the numbers of the various museums on it, and each museum gets a page with a little description/commentary, and sometimes some extra images to pretty it up or further illustrate the kind of cluttered miscellany that you’ll find there.

It’s a little heavy on things that’re worth the visit for the architecture/art, which doesn’t interest me — but that’s the point of an opinionated guide, once you get the drift of the person’s opinions. For those looking for family-friendly (kid-friendly, it means) trips, this book also tends to note how good the museum is on that front.

I found one or two museums I didn’t know about that I want to visit, and was reminded of others, so I think it has served its purpose.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)

An Opinionated Guide to London Bookshops, by Sonya Barber & James Manning

Like the other book in this series I’ve read, An Opinionated Guide to London Bookshops is a good travel guide if you’re interested in the topic — which it will surprise no one to hear I am. (If you are shocked, why are you here?) This one’s written by a couple, Sonya Barber and James Manning, and tends to note whether there are kid sections.

There’s a fair spread of political bookshops and bookshops for art and coffee table books, even one for cookbooks and another for all types of graphic novels and manga, but it feels weird that it’ll mention something as mainstream as Waterstones Piccadilly and not the Forbidden Planet International which is pretty good for SF/F stuff as well as comics. To judge from this book there are few genre specialist bookshops, and a quick search does seem to back that up, but in that light it seems especially weird to skip Forbidden Planet.

Also, I’m sorry, but organising by vague themes or by country is not a draw for me, yikes. By country the book is set in? By country the author comes from? What if the author’s a dual national? What if the book is set in several different countries? How do you find books by themes like “wanderlust”? It’s fine for browsing, but less so when you know what you want, including when you know you want some new SF/F or non-fiction and it’s all mingled together. I hate this trend.

Anyway, curmudgeon moment over. It’s a reasonably helpful volume, and of course constrained by what’s actually available in London, but man it seems weird if there are really no shops specialising in crime fiction or sci-fi (Forbidden Planet aside) in London?!

Like the museums guide, it has a map with the numbers on it, which helps in planning a trip.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)