Lights Out for the Territory 9 Excursions in the Secret History of London Book

I liked parts of this book. Sinclair knows his way round a sentence and I enjoyed his self-conscious prose. However, this is more a collection of fairly fragmented essays on obscure artists, poets and film-makers, tied together with the vague conceit of the author as a tongue-in-cheek Flâneur in London. Although I enjoyed the sections on Patrick Keiller and Chris Petit and the brief cameo from Howard Marks I didn’t engage as much on some of the longer sections on conceptual and performance artists like Rachel Whiteread and Brian Catling. I wanted more of Sinclair’s writing on London and urban space, rather than his critiques of the artists he obviously admires. At times I felt I might have been better served taking out a subscription with the London Review of Books and going through their back issues on line, given that many of the chapters were adapted from essays from the journal. Throughout reading Lights Out for the Territory, I was constantly making notes of other books to read and films to watch. I would have preferred to be more engaged with what I was reading, instead of feel distracted by the visions and imaginations of artists other than the author.