Tales from underground

Tim Bradford is obsessed with underground rivers, London, cats, peculiar questions and vitriolic correspondence between 19th-century experts over rivers. He piles all this into The Groundwater Diaries (HarperCollins/Flamingo, £8.99), a wander around the lost rivers of (mostly) north London. He can bore for Britain on some topics, but there is always a gem or two waiting on the next page. It’s good for accumulating obscure facts to quash know-it-alls. The problem is that you may end up as the repulsive know-it-all.