Fascinating, entertaining, radical and impassioned, Cities Are Good for You is a rallying cry for 21st-Century living

From Mumbai to Shanghai, Hollis is the perfect guide to the art, science and even maths of what makes cities so great Marcus du Sautoy Leo Hollis has written an eloquent, nuanced, and learned account of the ways in which cities can serve as conduits for happiness. His wide-ranging and acute observations of the interaction of the social and the formal map an optimistic and incisive vision of an emergent - and indispensable - urbanism predicated on sustainability, equity, imagination and trust Michael Sorkin A wonderfully rich and informative book. To present deep scholarship so accessibly and with such fluency is a rare achievement Tom Holland on The Phoenix A tour de force of biography, history, politics, philosophy and experimental science Economist Hollis's absorbing ability to conjure and flesh each period he explores ... Stories within stories tumble out like Russian dolls ... A beguiling device; a stalking horse of Palladian proportions Sunday Telegraph on The Stones of London An imaginative book that finds a convincing new way to tell the story of one of the most written-about cities in the world Independent

Leo Hollis was born in London in 1972. He went to school at Stonyhurst College and read History at UEA. He works in publishing and is the author of two books on the history of London: The Phoenix: The Men Who Made Modern London and The Stones of London: A History Through Twelve Buildings. He writes regularly for the New Statesman, the TLS and the Daily Telegraph. His blog can be found at www.citiesaregoodforyou.com and tweets at @leohollis.