I picked up this book as I am travelling to the UK later this year. Although I found this book very informative, it was quite dry and did not capture my interest the way I had hoped. I will pick it up again when I am abroad to see if it engages me more then than it does now.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is an information packed, quirky, yet informative read.
I enjoyed every page. Particularly the information about areas I’ve travelled to.
This books maps really add to the whole book.
Altogether, a different and unique read.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Ad Lib Publishers for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not sure this book should have ever been published. It’s full of outdated language and the author seems to obsessively point out that murders and rapists were gay. It also celebrates J K R****** without mentioning her transphobia, despite pointing out problematic issues with everybody else.

While I found the depth of information provided by this book impressive, it was at times monotonous and I felt as if I was reading a phone directory. It may appeal to some people but sadly, not me.

The sheer overkill of dates and addresses in this book sadly turned it from being interesting, into hard work for me. You really don’t need the full addresses (including postcode and phone number) for so many places, nor to include the dates of birth of irrelevant people (such as “X left the house and her family, including 5 children (A, born ____, B, born ____)…”).

Some bits were so short they were only two sentences long. Others dragged on and on and on. I thought the Ward/Keeler/Profumo section would never end.

Great in premise, but lost a bit in delivery for me, unfortunately. I received a free ARC copy of this via NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

Absolutely fascinating and riveting deep delve into many aspects of life in Britain (lots of crime!!)

I find it a very interesting book that I wish to make the most of on my next trip to Britain, however, I think the way it's presented, the editing, and such is very discouraging. Not compelling to keep reading with so much text presented in such a bland format.

The title stole my attention and I felt the urge to read it. Like most reviews written I feel just the same. The beginning was fun and very interesting until it got too factual, almost like reading archive files. I feel this book started with good heart in it, shame it got too factual.

Thank you for the advanced copy. I really enjoyed this, lots of fascinating facts and trivia and I found this easy to dip in and out of which I love sometimes.

Would make an ideal present

Highly recommended

This is an interesting book that comments on the geographical location of several rather interesting things with chapters such as murders, celebrities (and where they died) and pop culture- like where specific films were filmed. I am the type of person who would use this book to create a road trip of interesting places in Britain of where to go. It also added to my already morbid curiosity finding out how Lawrence of Arabia died and where, or adding to my interest of singers such as the fact that Eddie Cochran died in a car crashing trying to save his girlfriend's life, Gene Vincent was in the same car crash. He survived but died only a few years later.
Overall, this book helped paint a truly vivid idea of the history and culture of the country that I have lived in for 23 years (all my life).

This book was disappointing and missing key elements to make is successful for me.

The title indicates "Notorious" places, which got me interested and expecting unusual places. However, while many/most of the locations are notable, they are not notorious. The initial location of Harrods is not "notorious" is the way I think the word is commonly used.

The book also needs additional editing. I read on a Kindle and found the large blocks of text, often spanning a page or more, tedious and monotonous. In addition, there is a duplicate block of text in the Turing section. The subsections within a section (like found in the Beatles of Turing sections) did not format well on the Kindle and were often muddled together. It was hard top discern a subsection from a new section.

I also found that the book was missing orientation - I needed a map to provide context and a general reference for location. For example, I am going to Newcastle soon - how many of the locations are near there? I can't tell without a lot of effort as the book stands now.

I wanted to like this book and I was excited to get a copy, but ultimately it was disappointing.

This is such a fun book! The cover suggests an entertaining, sometimes whimsical and sometimes slightly dark history of the UK, and this is absolutely what is delivered. I loved entertaining my family with facts ranging from the tragic demise of so-called 'Elephant Man', Joseph Merrick, to the backstory of the slinky, with a little history of the UK introduction to McDonalds fast food restaurants along the way! Utterly fabulous - this book just makes the reader that bit more interesting!! Facts don't take long to read/digest or share, and it is a book that can be dipped in and out of. All in all, it is an utter joy!

My thanks to the author and publisher for providing and enabling such enlightening entertainment respectively, and to NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an advance copy.

It was a lot of fun and it's the perfect book if you want to learn about trivia, historical facts, crime and a lot of other info.
It's a book you can read a bit at a time and enjoyed it.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

The Notorious Guide to Britain by Paul Donnelly
Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley

Paul Donnelly does seem to do what the introduction to this says he intended to do. He makes it easy to find the places that he includes in this volume. On one hand that is good, on the other it is a bit not.
Because of the scope of the word notorious in the title, a good percentage of the places included are related to various crimes and scandals, which means there are many entries connected with murders. And this fine. It just seems wrong, however, to include private addresses of where crimes where committed, places that are still private homes, especially when those places were where the victims lived (and the families in some cases could still be living).
Donnelly does get bonus points for including the accusations against Prince Andrew in this book, however. He does not gloss over them.
That said, the book is nice little guide. It’s true at times some of the entries read something like encyclopedia entries in terms of style, but there is a quite a bit about business and a whole chapter on the arts as well as the crime related cites. There are several football (soccer) entries as well.
It is a good guide, packed with history.

A really good coffee table book full of wierd and wonderful facts, great read for pub quiz enthusiasts. I really enjoyed this book.

The Notorious Guide to Britain: A fascinating tour of the weird, wonderful, murderous and marvellous by Paul Donnelley was a fun read! This was a good book incase you go to any pub trivia nights :)

I love a book of facts and figures. This one features people, places and events from around the British Isles, across hundreds of years. The book is split into different topics – weird/wonderful, history, crime/murder, celebrity deaths, films, music, radio/TV, sports and books – and then those topics are listed alphabetically within the different sections.

There is lots of interesting pieces of information, some which I’d heard of before and some which were new to me. Some parts, I felt, were a bit longwinded, and there were names, dates and details which perhaps weren’t needed. I loved the sections where the information was short and snappy and found these were usually the parts which I hadn’t heard of before and found these new facts and figures really interesting! There is a lot packed into this book and it’s great for anyone who likes to know everything about everything! I particularly found the weird/wonderful and history parts the best and found myself reading out bits and pieces to my poor long-suffering husband who must have felt like he’d read the book as well by the time I’d finished!

This would make a great stocking filler or gift and I’m sure things that you learn by reading this book will be stored in the brain vault for use some time in the future…if not only just to wow people with your fun (and possibly useless!) pieces of information! I also found myself reminiscing with some sections, especially the people and I really enjoyed reading this!

Thank you to Net Galley for this ARC.

An interesting compendium of facts about Britain from the demise of long standing brands (RIP Woolies) to significant places in history. A good read particularly if you're looking to brush up on your knowledge for a pub quiz - or are writing your own quiz!

I found this book to be very informative. It answered a few questions I had plus some. The paragraphs regarding Princess Diana I found in poor taste.

This started strong but got a bit dull. I think it could have done with more surprising and random bits of history, less of the pop culture.