LONDON BOOKSHELF: LONDON OUT OF SIGHT

London Out Of Sight promises to be an "essential guide for anyone wanting solace from the city's bustling and hectic pace". It was published by black dog publishing in 2013 and can be acquired for the reasonable price of £9,95 at your local bookshop or ordered with that one giant snarling hound of a mail-order company, whichever you prefer.

The guide measures approx. 14,5x16,5cm, which I think is a very handy size to just pop into your bag and carry around in case of sudden longing for some quality city time. It is divided into five geographic sections which are Central, North, East, South and West. Each of these is introduced with an individual chapter page and a minimal map in grey, green and blue, which shows the section's locations and tube stations. Every section holds between twelve to sixteen places to explore, which adds up to over 60 featured tips in total, comprising of gardens, parks, squares, city farms, cementeries and nature reserves (yes, nature reserves)!

The layout is really nice (in fact, it is the exact same as in Tea & Cake London, also by black dog publishing), usually with one location spread over two pages. One of those pages is filled with pictures completely, whereas the other holds the name, address, postcode and opening times of the location, as well as the nearest tube station, the main info text and an additional vertical picture. As far as I can tell, the guide is impeccably researched and each text loaded with nice small chunks of history and special location features. As for the photography, unfortunately most of it has a rather low colour saturation. I was expecting to see lush greens throughout the book, especially because of the beautiful cover, but for the most part that is not the case. I can only assume it was an intentional design decision in order to give the guide a more homogeneous look as the image credits reveal a lot of different sources. There is no denying though that it makes the guide a bit less fun to read. 

I was also disappointed with the fact that London Out Of Sight neither includes the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew nor explicitly mentions the several walking routes in and around London (e.g. the London Loop). In case you would like to check these out yourself, you can can have a look at some beautiful Victorian glasshouses here and at photographer Tudor Prisăcariu's visual documentation of walking the London Outer Orbital Path here. To be fair, these felt like the only major flaws to me in terms of content, and among encountering old favourites inside the guide (including the Hackney City Farm and London Wetland Centre), I also found new ones (e.g. the South London Botanical Institute).

Altogether, London Out Of Sight is a solid guide and I would recommend picking it up if you are a visitor trying to venture past the usual sights, a local looking for some change-of-scene weekend inspiration or someone generally interested in that bustling, eight million inhabitants strong metropole on the Thames.