Book description
Keith Waterhouse was born in a world that has now vanished - a soot-blackened, tramcar-rattling provincial city. It happened to be Leeds. Waterhouse was a true city-boy, deeply mistrustful of grass and trees. In early childhood, he would roam the covered markets, the carillon-chiming arcades. As a youth he came…
Why read it?
1 author picked City Lights as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Waterhouse was famous as a journalist, dramatist, and novelist. But this memoir of growing up in Leeds from the 1930s-50s brings the place and time completely alive. He didn’t have a privileged upbringing, by any means, and Waterhouse captures the day-to-day of poor areas and estates, and well as the magic of the city centre. The novel Billy Liar brought him fame, and while the location was unnamed, it was the Leeds he’d known, right down to the funeral home where he worked after leaving school. Waterhouse innately understood Leeds and its people, and they jump off the page –…
From Chris' list on Leeds as it was.
If you love City Lights...
These Blue Mountains
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
Want books like City Lights?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 85 books like City Lights.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,366
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like City Lights, you might also like...
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Coyote Weather
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
