These books are so short that I'm mashing some reviews of them together.
What We Talk about When We Talk about the Tube: The District Line by John Lanchester
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is clearly one of the more funny, intelligently written and entertaining of the bunch of books that are written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the London subway.
I love the way the author has noted and answered questions like "How do drivers reach the start of their working day if the subway doesn't run before that?" and "What's the difference between 'tube' and 'underground', if any?".
It's also notable that getting stuck in a train while underground may cause temperatures higher than 35 degrees; this is the legal limit for the transportation of livestock - but there really isn't one for humans.
Also, there are words on the complete isolation of the drivers. They may have no human contact for hours, and are forced - by means of concentration - to not listen to music or use their mobile phone while driving.
All in all: too short! I could have read double the amount that the author wrote on the subway, and he's not restricted it much to that of the District line, which is what the book is semi-made to be about.
The 32 Stops: The Central Line by Danny Dorling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What statistics on London! The average life expectancy drops with 10 years if you travel for a few minutes. A lot of bankers do live around the Bank subway station. An average income differs huge amounts depending on where you live (surprise, surprise).
All in all, this is a very lubricated experiment in mixing factual numbers with fiction, and the outcome is sublime, chocking and very intelligently written about sociology, everyday life, crime, monetary factors, family life and all else that permeates the modern person when it comes to numbers and living. It's a lot better than I make it out to be.
A Good Parcel of English Soil: The Metropolitan Line by Richard Mabey
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
A lot of waffling, on and on about "Metro-land", and what the Metropolitan line means; this could have been great, but unfortunately, I crave other things. Maybe not my cup of tea at all, or maybe this book was just immensely tedious and pretentious in the worst sense of the word.