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Let Me Take You by the Hand Jennifer Kavanagh

Let Me Take You by the Hand By Jennifer Kavanagh

Let Me Take You by the Hand by Jennifer Kavanagh


$18.99
Condition - Very Good
Only 2 left

Summary

Let Me Take You By The Hand is a fascinating and eye-opening exploration of the life of London's streets, and is essential reading for those who read Ben Judah's This is London.

Let Me Take You by the Hand Summary

Let Me Take You by the Hand: True Tales from London's Streets by Jennifer Kavanagh

In 1861, the great journalist and social advocate Henry Mayhew published London Labour and the London Poor, an oral history of those living and working on the streets of Victorian London. Nothing on this scale had been attempted before.


On the surface, the streets of London in 1861 and in 2019 are entirely different places. But dig just a little and the similarities are striking and, in many cases, shocking. Taking Mayhew's book as inspiration, Jennifer Kavanagh explores the changes and continuities by collecting and mapping stories from today's London.

Beggars, street entertainers, stalls selling a variety of food, clothes, second-hand goods, thieves and the sex trade are all still predominant. The rise of the gig economy has brought a multitude of drivers and cyclists, delivering and moving goods, transporting meals and people, all organized through smart phones but using the same streets as Mayhew's informants. The precarity faced by this new workforce would also be familiar to the street-sellers of Mayhew's day. In terms of resources, gone are the workhouses, almshouses, paupers' lunatic asylums. Enter shelters, day centres, hostels, and food banks.

Let Me Take You By The Hand is an x-ray of life on the streets today: the stories in their own words of those who work and live in our capital.

Let Me Take You by the Hand Reviews

During my long years as a hostage I had no books and no contact whatsoever with the outside world. Using my imagination I walked along the streets of London and had many imaginary conversations with the people I met there. If only I had had this book with me then. Jennifer Kavanagh has actually walked the length and breadth of this great city and recorded the many conversations she had with people. Apart from being a fascinating snapshot of London in the 21st century, it's a valuable social commentary -- Terry Waite
What shines through this wonderfully engaging book is the author's genuine assumption that every life matters and, if we care to listen, has important things to tell us about our own. -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian *
The openness of the people she spoke to, and the empathy and skill she devised in winning their trust, are remarkable features of this humane and attractive book -- Jerry White * Times Literary Supplement *
Jennifer Kavanagh's [work is a] richly detailed mapping of the stories of those who have least, are often invisible, and bear the brunt of market forces they cannot influence. -- Richard Derecki * OnLondon *

About Jennifer Kavanagh

Jennifer Kavanagh worked in publishing for nearly thirty years, the last fourteen as an independent literary agent. Books she represented included world rights for Chinese Lives, an oral history of China just before the Tiananmen Square atrocity, and the British rights for classic American oral historian Studs Terkel.

Since leaving publishing, she has started and run a community centre in one of the poorest wards in London's East End, started a mobile library for homeless people, volunteered at an asylum seeker centre in central London, and set up a microcredit programme for women in poverty in London, as well as in Africa. She has also been a prison visitor at Pentonville and Dorchester, and for six years was a research associate for the Prison Reform Trust, working with inmates and staff in many prisons round the country. In one of her previous books, Journey Home, she interviewed a number of homeless people, refugees and women in a refuge. She lives in central London, and talks to people on the streets on a daily basis. Jennifer is a Churchill Fellow and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She has published nine books of non-fiction and two novels.

Additional information

GOR011422388
9781408713143
1408713144
Let Me Take You by the Hand: True Tales from London's Streets by Jennifer Kavanagh
Used - Very Good
Hardback
Little, Brown Book Group
20210603
416
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Let Me Take You by the Hand