Queer City

After his mammoth, shamanic aria London: the Biography, the remarkable writer Peter Ackroyd has produced a nimble, uproarious pocket history of sex in his beloved metropolis

Alasdair Lees, Independent

Ackroyd has an encyclopaedic knowledge of London, and a poet's instinct for its strange, mesmerising drives and urges ... Queer City contains something to alarm or fascinate on every page

Craig Brown, The Mail on Sunday

Ackroyd's brisk little history of what he calls queer London is itself a collation of sweetmeats

Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times

If there was a prize for the most evocative or salacious chapter headings, then Peter Ackroyd's new book, Queer City, would be the undisputed victor. They capture the rudery and naughtiness, although not the erudition of this entertaining history of the 'queer' experience in London

Robbie Millen, The Times

Always entertaining ... much to be recommended

Philip Hensher, The Spectator

Succinct, perceptive and robust

Rupert Christiansen, Daily Telegraph

The kind of screed a queer person would be remiss if they did not pick up. This is a call to arms... Throughout the book it is made clear that for every halcyon day, there was a dystopia that preceded and followed. The one great progress Ackroyd highlights is that we have one thing in the 21st century that the other eras did not: an attempt a 'gay community' ... London relies on queerness as much as queers have relied on the labyrinth and the bacchanal of the Big Smoke. Now, it seems, we have a chance to change it in the open

David Levesley

This gallop through the pink past [...] tells a torrid tale of persecution and pleasure, of blackmail and blue murder

Mark Sanderson, Evening Standard

Droll, provocative and crammed to busting with startling facts

Simon Callow, The Guardian

If you've never read anything by Peter Ackroyd, imagine settling down in a pub… There you are, ensconced in that pub… and you're stuck by the realization that your companion is so knowledgeable, so erudite, so simply brilliant that you don't care you've not got a word in edgeways since the first few foamy quaffs a couple of hours back. That's what reading Peter Ackroyd is like… Ackroyd possesses a lightness of touch which means the reader never feels overwhelmed by the accumulation of facts, figures, and salacious anecdotes they're presented with… Endlessly fascinating... This book teaches us the importance that queer life in London has, and always will have, to all of us

Josh Baines, THUMP UK

By shining a light in dark places, Ackroyd has created a triumphantly queer picture of a city he loves – as city as queer as any other

Philip Hoare, New Statesman

This is a very worthy book that charts queer experience onto the map of London from which it has been omitted for so many centuries

Sam Ford, Totally Dublin

A rambunctious chronicle of "gay London from pre-Roman times to the present day"

Guardian

Ackroyd delivers an excellent queer read about London, this time ‘our’ London… Endless facts delight and amuse in this celebration and investigation of queer life from Celtic times to the present day… Validating, interesting and endlessly fascinating

Gscene

A timely reminder that gay lives have always been tightly woven into London's rich social brocade

Prospect

Teeming with incredible stories, amazing characters and extraordinary detail, Queer City is the fascinating story of LGBT+ London from the Romans to the present day and reveals the incredibly rich history of London’s LGBT+ past

Pride Life

Succinct, perceptive and robust

Daily Telegraph