London's South Bank in 50 Buildings Paperback – 15 Jan. 2024

This book is a paperback which is a little too tightly bound making it awkward to read and with, for me at least, slightly too small text. However, it covers many buildings that are very familiar to me and and some that are not. Each building gets a short but very good description with colour photo(s), address, listed status, public access details where appropriate, nearest tube/rail etc.

The Amberley series of towns/districts "in 50 Buildings" is a real delight.This volume is number120 and is particularly good.The format is familiar : half a page or so of succinct description of each building accompanied by at least one splendid photo -- many photos are full-page.Berk and Kolsky have form.They did the superb volume on Whitechapel (2016) which I rekon is just about the best of the 120,and that's saying something.I must mention the map in South Bank.To be honest the maps in this series have not been a strong point with various errors and other problems.But this time the authors have used the Map App which is common to all books in the series quite wonderfully.The numbering of the 50 buildings is exactly as you need to walk the area from Vauxhall Bus Station along the Thames and round to Tower Bridge.But what of the 50 selections ? All the landmarks you would expect are included: OXO building,London Eye, National Theatre and so on.But there is also a sprinkling of less familiar items : Hay's Galleria,Garden Museum , and a couple of massive edifices on Stamford St.In short, strongest possible recommendation for a book and a series which are excellent vfm. Might be a good idea for the publishers to include a full list of the 120 volumes in future editions.

An enjoyable book to read especially as I have a good knowledge of the South Bank. However, could be more detailed and more integrated into the evolution of the area.