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A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People's Institution
Travis Elborough
€ 14.99
€ 11.80
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Description for A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People's Institution
Paperback. Parks are such a familiar part of everyday life. You might be forgiven for thinking they have always been there - and that they always will. In fact, the roots of even the most humble neighbourhood park lie in age-old battles over land and liberty. This celebration of parks is filled with history, and anecdotes. Num Pages: 288 pages. BIC Classification: 1DBK; HBJD1; HBTB; JFCA; JHBS. Category: (G) General (US: Trade); (P) Professional & Vocational; (U) Tertiary Education (US: College). Dimension: 198 x 129. .
'A fascinating, informative, revelatory book' William Boyd, Guardian Parks are such a familiar part of everyday life, you might be forgiven for thinking they have always been there. In fact, public parks are an invention. From their medieval inception as private hunting grounds through to their modern incarnation as public spaces of rest and relaxation, parks have been fought over by land-grabbing monarchs, reforming Victorian industrialists, hippies, punks, and somewhere along the way, the common folk trying to savour their single day of rest. In A Walk in the Park, Travis Elborough excavates the history of parks in all their colour and complexity. Loving, funny and impassioned, this is a timely celebration of a small wonder that - in an age of swingeing cuts - we should not take for granted.
Product Details
Publisher
Vintage
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2017
Condition
New
Number of Pages
416
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780099593829
SKU
V9780099593829
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-84
About Travis Elborough
Travis Elborough is the author of four acclaimed books, The Bus We Loved, a history of the Routemaster bus; The Long Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records; Wish You Were Here, a history of the British beside the seaside; and London Bridge in America, which tells the transatlantic story of the sale of the world's largest antique. Travis regularly appears on Radio 4 and writes for the Guardian.
Reviews for A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People's Institution
This is a fascinating, informative, revelatory book ... The vast array of knowledge that Elborough disperses in this book will make you look at parks differently ... Parks seem an immutable, strangely paradisiacal element of our fraught and complicated urban lives, but the fact that we actually have them, as Elborough demonstrates in this wonderful book is something to be marvelled at.
William Boyd
Guardian
Travis Elborough is becoming a latter-day Alan Bennett. Let loose in an array of reference libraries, he summons many a curious fact...from the shelves, which makes for a rich narrative... Alluring detail fills every page.
Christopher Hawtree
Spectator
Amiable new history of the public park... Turns up lots of interesting, joyful stuff... A Walk in the Park is an enjoyable stroll.
Rachel Cooke
Observer
His writing combines subtle drollery with a fantastical, Monty Python-ish strain... We can count this captivating book among the boons they [parks] have granted us.
Andrew Martin
Financial Times
Charming blend of the patriotic, popular and whimsical... Beautifully written.
James McConnachie
Sunday Times
Breezy but fact-filled prose... A worthy paean to the importance of parks to British life. His book is impassioned, informative.
Daisy Dunn
The Times
Quirky and delightful.
Rachel Cooke
Observer
Travis is a joyful cultural celebrant offering tantalizing nuggets of social history.
Justine Crow
Families South East
Quirky, lively history, full of unexpected detail.
Simple Things
Amiable new history of the public park... He turns up lots of interesting, joyful stuff along the way. He's particularly good on our forebears' taste for the ersatz... A Walk in the Park is an enjoyable stroll.
Rachel Cooke
Guardian
Fast-paced and richly peopled... Ebullient and enamored of his heroes is Elborough.
Gillian Darley
Literary Review
Highly enjoyable.
Sunday Times
Elborough's quietly effervescent style manages to transform the reader from being someone with a passing interest in whatever topic he happens to be writing about into a fully-fledged Routemaster/LP/London loon.
Travel Guide
Elborough writes in an aptly meandering style with an appetite for the eccentric marginalia of history
Ben Felsenburg
Mail on Sunday
[It is] quirky and original.
Times Literary Supplement
[A Walk in the Park is] wittily written and wide-ranging.
French Property News, Book of the Year
William Boyd
Guardian
Travis Elborough is becoming a latter-day Alan Bennett. Let loose in an array of reference libraries, he summons many a curious fact...from the shelves, which makes for a rich narrative... Alluring detail fills every page.
Christopher Hawtree
Spectator
Amiable new history of the public park... Turns up lots of interesting, joyful stuff... A Walk in the Park is an enjoyable stroll.
Rachel Cooke
Observer
His writing combines subtle drollery with a fantastical, Monty Python-ish strain... We can count this captivating book among the boons they [parks] have granted us.
Andrew Martin
Financial Times
Charming blend of the patriotic, popular and whimsical... Beautifully written.
James McConnachie
Sunday Times
Breezy but fact-filled prose... A worthy paean to the importance of parks to British life. His book is impassioned, informative.
Daisy Dunn
The Times
Quirky and delightful.
Rachel Cooke
Observer
Travis is a joyful cultural celebrant offering tantalizing nuggets of social history.
Justine Crow
Families South East
Quirky, lively history, full of unexpected detail.
Simple Things
Amiable new history of the public park... He turns up lots of interesting, joyful stuff along the way. He's particularly good on our forebears' taste for the ersatz... A Walk in the Park is an enjoyable stroll.
Rachel Cooke
Guardian
Fast-paced and richly peopled... Ebullient and enamored of his heroes is Elborough.
Gillian Darley
Literary Review
Highly enjoyable.
Sunday Times
Elborough's quietly effervescent style manages to transform the reader from being someone with a passing interest in whatever topic he happens to be writing about into a fully-fledged Routemaster/LP/London loon.
Travel Guide
Elborough writes in an aptly meandering style with an appetite for the eccentric marginalia of history
Ben Felsenburg
Mail on Sunday
[It is] quirky and original.
Times Literary Supplement
[A Walk in the Park is] wittily written and wide-ranging.
French Property News, Book of the Year