Guide book with added history

I am a sucker for reading about places that I think I know well, enjoy novels with Edinburgh backgrounds and love finding out the mistakes of authors. For example Mr Rankin, it is not possible to turn into Victoria Street from Geo IV Bridge, in a car!

So this book came as a pleasant surprise, it is actually quite well written, amusing in parts, retells legends well enough and regurgitates history without any obvious howlers.

It serves as a oddments drawer where all the half remembered stories, snippets of geology, dribs and drabs of architectural trivia and some genuinely interesting facts are piled in such a glorious tangle that make you want to follow the narration and see for yourself. As an aid memoir to photographs you have always meant to take it is useful.

I am swithering about entering the e-reader world, torn twixt newly announced Kindle and waiting for the birth of the rumoured smaller iPad. Until I can resolve my dilemma, I am still buying paper copies. I always find that the bogof offers leave me with a book I really want and searching around for the half price add on, sometimes not chancing across anything. Many books that I may not otherwise have purchased have come into my possession in that way. Frys Edinburgh is one of these, however it is not one of the stinkers that I immediately regret buying as soon as I open them. On the contrary it is worth paying half price for, if for no other reason than that of giving me a blip for today. And for £4.50 that cannot be bad!