Rachel Lichtenstein

C. J. Schüler

A Human History of the Great North Wood

Wood That Built London

Iain Sinclair

Rodinsky's Room

LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2017 A hauntingly beautiful social history of the Thames Estuary, from the author of On Brick Lane Out at the eastern edge of England, between land and ocean, you will find beautiful, haunted salt marshes, coastal shallows and wide-open skies: the Thames Estuary. The estuary is an ancient gateway to England, a passage for numberless travellers in and out of London. And for generations, the people of Kent and Essex have lived and worked on the Estuary, learning its waters, losing loved ones to its deeps. Their heritage is a proud but never an easy one. In the face of a world changing around them, they endure. Rachel Lichtenstein spent five years exploring this unique community and recording its extraordinary chorus of voices, present and past. From mud larkers and fishermen to radio pirates and champion racers, from buried princesses to unexploded bombs, Estuary is a celebration of a haunting & profoundly British place.

Out from London to the Sea

Estuary

Brick Lane today is a place of extremes – a street that's constantly reinventing itself. Blending history and reportage with personal testimony and urban myths, and interspersing these with maps and photography, On Brick Lane is a one-of-a-kind chronicle of one of London's most remarkable streets. Bringing to life the memories and realities of Brick Lane's many communities, Rachel Lichtenstein harnesses the voices of the famous, the infamous and the obscure, merging memoir, reportage, poetry, photography and local history. The result is as vibrant and fascinating as the neighbourhood it so movingly celebrates.

On Brick Lane

Hatton Garden is one of the most secret streets in England, home for two centuries to a deeply private working community of diamond and jewellery dealers. Intimately connected to the area both personally (her family run a jewellery business there) and professionally (as an artist archivist of London's streets), Rachel Lichtenstein is uniquely placed to explore the extraordinary history of this mysterious quarter, with its ancient burial sites, diamond workshops, underground vaults, subterranean rivers, monastic dynasties and forgotten palaces. Moving beyond the street itself into parts of Clerkenwell, Holborn and Farringdon, Rachel follows the ancient perimeter of the original Hatton Garden estate, which once bordered the lost River Fleet. Guided on her walks by archaeologists, sewer flushers, artists, goldsmiths, geologists and visionaries of the city such as Iain Sinclair, she crosses the same territory repeatedly, gathering new layers of the story with each journey. The result is a brilliantly immersive and multi-layered portrait; both a documentary and a secret history of a vanishing world.

The Hidden World of Hatton Garden

Diamond Street

Rodinsky's world was that of the East European Jewry, cabbalistic speculation, an obsession with language as code and terrible loss. He touched the imagination of artist Rachel Lichtenstein, whose grandparents had left Poland in the 1930s. This text weaves together Lichtenstein's quest for Rodinsky - which took her to Poland, to Israel and around Jewish London - with Iain Sinclair's meditations on her journey into her own past and on the Whitechapel he has reinvented in his own writing. Rodinsky's Room is a testament to a world that has all but vanished, a homage to a unique culture and way of life.

Brick Lane today is a place of extremes � a street that's constantly reinventing itself. Blending history and reportage with personal testimony and urban myths, and interspersing these with maps and photography, On Brick Lane is a one-of-a-kind chronicle of one of London's most remarkable streets. Bringing to life the memories and realities of Brick Lane's many communities, Rachel Lichtenstein harnesses the voices of the famous, the infamous and the obscure, merging memoir, reportage, poetry, photography and local history. The result is as vibrant and fascinating as the neighbourhood it so movingly celebrates.

LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2017 An immersive, intimate journey into the world of the Thames Estuary and the people who spend their lives there The Thames Estuary is one of the world's great deltas, providing passage in and out of London for millennia. It is silted up with the memories and artefacts of past voyages. It is the habitat for an astonishing range of wildlife. And for the people who live and work on the estuary, it is a way of life unlike any other - one most would not trade for anything, despites its dangers. Rachel Lichtenstein has travelled the length and breadth of the estuary many times and in many vessels, from hardy tug boats to stately pleasure cruisers to an inflatable dinghy. And during these crossing she has gathered an extraordinary chorus of voices: mudlarkers and fishermen, radio pirates and champion racers, the men who risk their lives out on the water and the women who wait on the shore. From the acclaimed author of Brick Lane and Rodinsky's Room, Estuary is a thoughtful and intimate portrait of a profoundly British place. With a clear eye and a sharp ear, Rachel Lichtenstein captures the essence of a community and an environment, examining how each has shaped and continues to shape the other.

Rachel Lichtenstein

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