Cyclogeography (14 page)

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Authors: Jon Day

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1 Prologue

Bella Bathurst,
The Bicycle Book
(2011)

Charles Baudelaire, ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ (1859)

Walter Benjamin,
The Arcades Project
(1999)

Michel De Certeau,
The Practice of Everyday Life
(1984)

Guy Debord,
Society the Spectacle
(1977)

— ‘Theory of the Dérive’ in the
Situationist International Anthology
(2006)

Paul Fournel,
Need for the Bike
(2003)

David Herlihy,
Bicycle
(2004)

Patrick Keiller,
The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes
(2013)

Valeria Luiselli,
Sidewalks
(2014)

V. S Pritchett,
London Perceived
(1962)

Jonathan Raban,
Soft City
(1974)

Steen Eiler Rasmussen,
London: the Unique City I
(1934)

Graham Robb,
The Discovery of France
(2007)

Iain Sinclair,
Lights Out for the Territory
(1997)

Sukhdev Sandhu,
Nighthaunts: A Journey through the London Night
(2007)

Matt Seaton,
The Escape Artist
(2002)

Rebecca Solnit,
Wanderlust: A History of Walking
(2001)


A Field Guide to Getting Lost
(2006)

2 Circulation

Nicholas Barton,
The Lost Rivers of London
(1962)

Charles Bukowski,
Post Office
(1971)

William Gibson,
Virtual Light
(1993)

Charles G. Harper,
The Brighton Road: The Classic Highway to the South
(1892)

Henry Miller,
Tropic of Capricorn
(1957)

Jeffrey L. Kidder,
Urban Flow: Bike Messengers and the City
(2011)

Thomas Pynchon,
The Crying of Lot 49
(1965)

Will Self,
The Quantity Theory of Insanity
(1991)

Ken Worpole,
Staying Close to the River
(1995)

Patrick Wright,
A Journey Through Ruins
(1991)

3 Cartesian Centaurs

Luigi Bartolini,
Bicycle Thieves
(1946)

Samuel Beckett,
More Pricks Than Kicks
(1934)


Mercier and Camier
(1970)

Alastair Brotchie,
Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life
(2011)

Gregory J. Downey,
Telegraph Messenger Boys: Labor, Technology, and Geography 1850–1950
(2002)

John Foot,
Pedelare! Pedelare!
(2011)

Ford Madox Ford,
The Soul of London: A Survey of a Modern City
(1905)

James Heartfield, ‘Lodonostalgia’ in
Blueprint
(2004)

Alfred Jarry,
The Supermale
(1964)


The Selected Works of Alfred Jarry
(1965)

Hugh Kenner,
Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study
(1961)

Joe Kerr and Andrew Gibson (eds.),
London from Punk to Blair
(2003)

Henry Mayhew,
London Labour and the London Poor
(1851)

Flann O’Brien,
The Third Policeman
(1966)

George Orwell,
Down and Out in Paris and London
(1933)

4 Race

Roland Barthes,
What is Sport?
(2007)

— ‘The Tour de France as Epic’ in
Mythologies
(2012)

Richard Cobb,
Tour de France
(1976)

Graeme Fife,
The Beautiful Machine
(2008)

Tim Krabbé,
The Rider
(2002)

Christopher S. Thompson,
The Tour de France: A Cultural History
(2006)

James Waddington,
Bad to the Bone
(1998)

Geoffrey Wheatcroft,
Le Tour: A History of the Tour de France
(2003)

5 Off the Map

Walter Benjamin, ‘A Berlin Chronicle’ in
Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings
(2005)

William Fotheringham,
Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson
(2007)

Simon Garfield,
On The Map: Why the world looks the way it does
(2012)

Nigel Henderson,
Photographs of Bethnal Green 1949–1952
(1978)

Richard Long,
Heaven and Earth
(2009)

R. W. Mylne,
London and its Environs, Topographical and Geological
(1856)

Nick Papadimitriou,
Scarp
(2013)

Dieter Roelstraete,
Richard Long: A Line Made by Walking
(2010)

Iain Sinclair,
American Smoke
(2013)


London Orbital
(2003)


Edge of The Orison
(2005)

— ‘The Raging Peloton’ in the
London Review of Books
(2011)


Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire, A Confidential Report
(2009)

Ben Tufnell (ed.),
Richard Long: Selected Statements and Interviews
(2007)

6 On the Road

Hilaire Belloc,
The Stane Street
(1913)


The Old Road
(1905)

David Caddy,
Cycling After Thomas and the English
(2013)

Zack Furness,
One Less Car: Bicycling and the politic of Automobility
(2010)

Robert Macfarlane,
The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot
(2012)

Alexis Martin, ‘Physiologie de l’asphalte’ in
Le Bohème
(1855)

Henry Miller,
My Bike and Other Friends
(1978)

C. E. Montague,
The Right Place
(1924)

Joe Moran,
On Roads: A Hidden History
(2009)

William Saroyan,
The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills
(1953)

Edward Thomas,
In Pursuit of Spring
(1914)


Selected Poems
(2011)

H. G. Wells,
The Wheels of Chance
(1895)

7 Coda

William Saroyan,
The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills
(1952)

I’m thankful to all at the
London Review of Books,
especially Joanna Biggs, Thomas Jones, Christian Lorentzen, Nicholas Richardson and Alice Spawls, and to Nikil Saval and
n
+
1
, in which some of these ideas were first aired. Bill Chidley, Ben Day, Paul Fournel, Richard Long, Robert Macfarlane and Iain Sinclair were very generous, both with their time and with their thoughts.

I am especially grateful to Damian Le Bas, Jonathan Gharraie, Edmund Gordon, Brenda Herbert, William Kraemer, Olivia Laing, Jo Lennan and Thomas Marks, who were excellent and attentive readers.

Philippa and Anne Stanners, Humphrey and Celia Bourne, Tariq and Emma Goddard, James Purdon and Kristen Treen provided shelter and company. For translations and conversations, many thanks to Charlotte Higgins, Agostino Inguscio, Alex Niven, Stephen Ross and Derry Tomlinson, and to London’s couriers, who shared their stories. Thanks to Jacques Testard, who first commissioned this book, and to Kim Kremer and Karen Lockney, who finished it off. Peter Straus is a fine and attentive agent to whom I am immensely grateful. For teaching me to ride, I thank my family. Most of all I thank Natalya.

 

 

 

 

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My Katherine Mansfield Project
by Kirsty Gunn

In this lyrical essay, Gunn explores the idea of home and belonging – and the profound influence of Mansfield’s work on her own creative journey.

‘I began reading it and could not put it down … It really lives, all of it.’ – John Carey

Pilgrims of the Air
by John Wilson Foster

The story of the brutal extinction of the Passenger Pigeon, once so abundant that they ‘blotted out the sky’. It is also an evocative story of wild America – the ruthless exploitation of its ‘commodities’, and a morality tale for our times.

‘Every page of this book is lit with a sense of wonder.’
– Michael Longley

Nairn’s Towns
by Ian Nairn, Introduced by Owen Hatherley

Sixteen short essays on Northern cities and towns in Britain. Ian Nairn (1930–1983) coined the term ‘Subtopia’ for the areas around cities that had been failed by urban planning.

‘Nairn’s Towns
should be kept in the glove-box of every car.’
– Standpoint Magazine

Say What You Mean: The n
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Edited by Christian Lorentzen

A selection from the best of
n
+
1
, a Brooklyn-based magazine of politics, literature and culture.

‘Just when you’re intellectually alone in the world, something like
n
+
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falls into your hands.’ – Jonathan Franzen

Questions of Travel: William Morris in Iceland
by Lavinia Greenlaw

The great Victorian William Morris was fascinated by Iceland, which inspired him to write one of the masterpieces of travel literature. The poet Lavinia Greenlaw follows in his footsteps, combining excerpts from his Icelandic writings with her own response to the country.

 

CLASSIC COLLECTION

The Classic Collection brings together the finest essayists of the past, introduced by contemporary writers.

Beautiful and Impossible Things
– Selected Essays of Oscar Wilde
Introduced by Gyles Brandreth

Words of Fire – Selected Essays of Ahad Ha’am
Introduced by Brian Klug

Essays on the Self – Selected Essays of Virginia Woolf
Introduced by Joanna Kavenna

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Published in 2015
by Notting Hill Editions Ltd
Widworthy Barton Honiton Devon EX14 9JS

Designed by FLOK Design, Berlin, Germany
Typeset by CB editions, London

Printed and bound by
Memminger MedienCentrum, Memmingen, Germany

Copyright © 2015 by Jon Day

All rights reserved

The right of Jon Day to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Image credit on page 24: ‘Room with a View’ copyright © Benjamin Hughes.
Image credit on page 115: Stressed Photograph, c.1950, Nigel Henderson (1917–1985). Purchased 2007. © Nigel Henderson Estate. Photo credit:
© Tate, London 2015

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

A CIP record for this book
is available from the British Library

Print ISBN 978-1-907-90399-1
Ebook ISBN 978-1-910749-30-2

www.nottinghilleditions.com

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