15 London books, podcasts and Instagrams
To enjoy over the Christmas break
Hello and welcome to Wooden City, a newsletter about London.
If you haven’t come here via @caffs_not_cafes, I'm a writer called Isaac Rangaswami and this is my Substack.
Every other week I publish an article about everyday places in London with unusual staying power, like shops, buildings, restaurants and public spaces.
Wooden City is a reader-supported publication and paid subscribers get much more. This includes access to maps, full articles and an archive of material covering over 200 places so far.
This newsletter sprouted in late March, so a year in its life begins and ends in spring. I’ll save most of my reflections on its first 12 months for when the clocks move forward, but I still want to say a big thank you in the meantime. I’m absolutely loving writing Wooden City and I’m so happy with how it’s been received.
To round out the Gregorian calendar year, my gift to you is this list of cultural recommendations. I’ve chosen this topic because I actually quite like the weird period between the 26th and the 1st, and I use it to catch up on things that passed me by. I try to read more and listen to the radio; I also inevitably spend loads of time on my phone. I offer these 15 books, podcasts and Instagram pages in that spirit.
Each one relates to London in some way, since that’s what this newsletter is about. They touch on some of its other key themes too – food, buildings, dying traditions, the diasporas of the present and past – as well as topics I haven’t explored, such as corruption and crime.
Many of these cultural items have also influenced my writing, in some cases shaping what I’ve published on Wooden City so far. If you want to revisit anything I’ve written, you can browse the archive by most popular article here.
If you like this newsletter enough to buy someone a gift subscription for Christmas, that would make my year. You can do so below.
Instagram pages
1. @londonpubmap
When I walk past distinctive pubs and note them down, including spots in outer London I assume only locals know, I find that @londonpubmap has been drinking in them for years. Feargus also regularly inspires me to visit incredible pubs that I’d never heard of, such as The Cockpit in Blackfriars and The Claddagh Ring in Hendon. His page is highly practical, describing each place, the price of a pint and the location of the nearest tube. At the time of writing it has covered more than 900 pubs all over London, with multiple new posts each week.
2. @narbailey
@narbailey is all about lettering on buildings, which means things like faded ads, public notices and doorway mosaics. I have a lot of respect for anyone who takes wandering around London seriously and Nicola Bailey has been at it for years. I follow lots of pages like this; I chose this one because it’s prolific enough that you can scroll down for ages in a satisfying way. It also reinforces a theory of mine: once you start looking for old signage, it’s all you see.
3. @eat_easy_uk
@eat_easy_uk is run by a guy who loves food and knows a lot about it. He focuses on northwest London neighbourhoods such as Acton, Kilburn, Wembley and Harlesden, and his posts reflect the multiplicity of cuisines in those areas. Rohan Jones simply accumulates pictures by eating out at local restaurants he likes, then tells his followers which dishes are good. I’m sure this is why so many cooks and food writers follow his page, and Vittles tapped him up for its Six of One slot.
4. @stokenewingtonhistory
All of these pages use Instagram to document their obsessions, but none surpass the zeal Amir Dotan has for the history of Stoke Newington. He has catalogued everything from coal hole covers to painted-over mezuzahs; he even gets invited inside N16 residents’ homes to photograph their period features. But my favourite thing about @stokenewingtonhistory is its coverage of the area’s commercial properties. Once a year, Dotan photographs every shopfront on Stoke Newington Church Street. He isn’t just looking backwards, but recording the present as it transforms.
Podcasts and radio programmes
5. Illuminated: How Much Can You Say?
I always have Radio 4 on in the kitchen and I heard part of this programme by Tice Cin and Jude Shapiro one evening while I was doing the dishes. I missed the start, so I sought it out on BBC Sounds the next day and ended up listening all the way through again. I find it compelling not just because of its subject matter – the north London heroin trade – but because of its form. A series of intimate interviews draws you into the culture of secrecy that surrounds this industry. Each testimony is presented without judgement, stitched together in a way that makes for a deeply atmospheric headphone listen.