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Sukhdev Sandhu's Night Haunts is Observer paperback of the week

Tamar Shlaim 1 November 2010

William Skidelsky calls Sukhdev Sandhu's Night Haunts "unconventional, poetic and—yes—haunting", and makes it his paperback of the week.

Throughout, Sandhu is alive to the magic and mystery of the London night, qualities too often sacrificed to the modern tendency to equate "night" with "nightlife". Night, he argues, is now no longer a realm of enchantment, but a zone of tawdry entertainment, where opportunities for profit-making can be ruthlessly extended.

Night Haunts represents a rearguard action against this tendency. It is a work of salvage, an attempt to claw back the darkness from the dozy, indifferent hordes. While it may not make you want to spring out of bed and spend your nights hunting urban foxes or daubing graffiti on walls (the subjects of two other chapters), it acts as a reminder that there are people who do such things and that we would do well to bear them in mind.

Visit the Observer to read the review in full.

On Friday 5th November, Sukhdev Sandhu will be giving the inaugural lecture of Night Shifts—a new seminar series at Birkbeck exploring London's dark half.

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