London Review of Bookies is Rob McGlade's first work of nonfiction, a work-in-progress ethnography of London's betting shops. It uses a full walking traversal of every bookmaker in London—over 800 in total, with more than 300 visited so far—as the framework for a wider study of British and Irish working-class culture, told from the perspective of the punter rather than the usual discourse of policy and moral panic. 

Throughout, humour is treated as a tool of perception rather than ridicule, a way of locating the comic inside the serious without cheapening either. The book moves between ethnography, memoir, art theory, and cultural criticism, examining shop interiors, virtual horse racing, and the slow disappearance of the physical bookmaker from the high street. 

At the centre of the project is the Archive of Broken Dreams, an ongoing collection of discarded, processed betting slips, capturing the handwritten gestures of London's diverse peoples, documenting one of the last corners of public life where people still write by hand every day, in a society where handwriting is increasingly marginalised.

Sophie met Rob when he was supporting David Sedaris on his latest tour, and has been raving about his performance ever since. Rob will be performing and then in conversation with Sophie about his work.