This really is a love letter to city life and all its many forms, but I expected it to be dry and, well, maybe a little boring. Happily I was wrong, and Grescoe's prose sucked me in immediately. I found myself wanting to visit most of these places—even Moscow—because he writes about them beautifully. The book was published in 2012, and so mich good and bad has happrned in cities since then, I almost want an updated edition, but fortunately, Grescoe still writes prolifically about cities.