Circles and Diagonals: Penguin Underground Lines

Book excerpt: Read stories inspired by the four Underground lines that run around and through areas of London - part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin. Family, passion and fashion come together in four tales: The Circle Line: From Lucy Wadham, the bestselling author of The Secret Life of France, an autobiographical tale of bohemians, punk, the King's Road in the 1970s and family. The Metropolitan Line: Richard Mabey, one of Britain's leading nature writers, looks in A Good Parcel of English Soil at the relationship between city and country, and how this brings out the power of nature The East London Line: London is a centre of cutting-edge fashion - here, the creators of 'the best fashion mag out there', Fantastic Man, tell the story of London style through the history of the button-down shirt. The Waterloo & City Line: Leanne Shapton, author of Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris and Swimming Studies, creates an authorly and artistic response to travel, work and being a passenger.