Imagine a City

Book excerpt: A pilot's love letter to the world's greatest cities from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Skyfaring 'A journey around both the author's mind and the planet's great cities that leaves us energised, open to new experiences and ready to return more hopefully to our lives' ALAIN DE BOTTON Growing up in his small hometown, Mark Vanhoenacker spun the illuminated globe in his bedroom and dreamt of elsewhere - of distant, real cities, and a perfect metropolis that existed only in his imagination. Now, as a commercial airline pilot, Mark has spent more than two decades crossing the skies of our planet and touching down in the cities he'd always longed to see. Imagine a City celebrates the metropolises he has come to know and love through the lens of the hometown his heart has never left. From the sweeping roads of Los Angeles and the old gates of Jeddah to the intricate, dream-inspired plan of Brasília, he shows us with warmth and fresh eyes the extraordinary places that billions of us call home. 'Vanhoenacker... has a near-bottomless appetite for fresh sights and guidebook curiosities... Intimate and thoughtful' PICO IYER, AIR MAIL 'A love letter to the cities he's returned to again and again... Vanhoenacker captivates when describing the silent beauty of a world glimpsed from above' Washington Post 'Eloquent... A love song to cities the world over' Wall Street Journal