Admittedly, I mistakenly thought this was going to me in the style of a long essay analysing the experiences of queer men in London from 1945-1959. So, I was surprised to realise it's actually an anthology of source extracts. However, I do think this will be an incredibly useful reference resource for anyone researching around the topic of queer Londoner (or even just queer men in the UK) - especially with the sources being organised by year. Not a book I could read from cover to cover with ease but clearly an invaluable research resource.

A hugely informative and submersive study, filled with a variety of newspaper articles, factual accounts as well as personal diary entries. Dense with detail, it was a very engrossing read.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

This was a very thorough and expansive anthology that provided a large collection of accounts of queer men living in London during the specified period. It is well-edited and contains an extensive amount of detailed information. In summary it was a very interesting and informative read.

This is a thoroughly researched view of the life of gay men in London. The materials include letters, diaries, newspaper articles, court records, fiction excerpts and more. It will give you a good idea of what gay men faced during these fifteen years. It was the period when the Wolfenden Report was conducted and published and we see here also its immediate reception - this is the part I found most interesting, together with the glimpses into private diaries and correspondence.

I would appreciate more thorough commentary on the individual pieces to provide more detailed context. The biographies of people included in this volume are very useful.

Life for queer men in London, told through letters and diaries brilliantly collected and published by Peter Parker. This is moving, sexy, eye opening, and brings post war London to dazzling, technicolour life. There’s a glamour and yet a sadness to some of the stories told here- but also brilliantly rewarding stories of people living and loving as openly as possible in a time when it was forbidden by law. Bring on part 2!

It certainly gives you a since of perspective about where we are in terms of human rights. It left me feeling very disappointed in humanity, although strangely it gave me a sense of hope.
The different accounts were all kind of disturbing, then funny, then gentle and romantic, I had to take breaks.
I needed this read.

A wonderful deep dive into a specific period of LGBT history.

This was a wonderful anthology, edited to perfection and provided a brilliant insight into post-war life for 'Some Men in London'.

Expansive, immersive, and expertly edited. In all, an enthralling anthology that drops the reader into an entirely different era for queer life, one that can be at times sad and moving whilst, at others, celebrating the power of perseverance.

A really deep dive into a period of gay history in England's capital city that feels like an aeon ago, but in many ways does not. From moral panics (remember the recent S28 and HIV crisis?), a finely detailed history of a subculture that contributed far more than the sum of its parts to mainstream British cultural life, to the individual stories of gay men living in London and coping as best they could within a system that criminalised their love told through diaries, interviews, and primary research., this is a moving, provocative and powerful book.

So interesting - a wonderful insight into the complex subculture of homosexuality when it was illegal.