There's much to enjoy in Gareth Rees's tour of/guide to "urban legends, uncanny events, contemporary folklore, and cryptozoological beasts" in Britain. It takes in pylons, roundabouts, power stations, multistoreys, and the M6, some of which may be familiar from Rees's previous work and the amount of research he has put in is impressive. Occasionally it comes to close to the striving for significance that undermines the more prosaic attempts at psychogeography that become a little too common and which Will Wiles (referred to here) satirises in Plume. Nevertheless, Rees has an eye for a good story and an intriguing detail (the first multi-storey was built, inevitably in London, in 1901, for example) and, although over-serious in tone, there's much to enjoy here even for those who unaccountably don't love pylons as much as Rees does.

When people think of traveling to Great Britain, they think about seeing the Tower of London, Big Ben and all the other tourist icons, but as Rees explains, there are other, overlooked areas that truly represent Britain and her inhabitants. Places that seem insignificant at first glance, but that hold meaning to the many people who have lived, loved and died in their shadow. Having a father who was raised in London, I was told stories about some of the city’s most famous landmarks, but also about the fountain he was playing in when he heard that England was at war with Germany and the tree in Epping Forest he used to sit under when his parents argued. Those places are as real to me as they were to my father, and thanks to Rees, I now know of other lesser known areas in Britain that were just as important to other British people