City-Lit: new series of travel books

A new series of travel books is to be published by travel publisher Oxygen beginning this month. The books take the form of literature anthologies on each city and will include excerpts from books as well as specially commissioned writing which aim to capture the essence of a place. Entitled City-Lit, the series will offer the unique feel for the sights, sounds and flavours of the city that only the very best writers can provide. Malcolm Burgess, the founder of Oxygen, said: "They will be bought by armchair travellers as well as by people visiting the city. There isn't anything quite like this on the market. We are obsessed and enthusiastic about cities and writing. Our only criterion is lovely, brilliant writing. It can be literary, journals, blogs or graffiti written on a bus stop." Unlike other travel guides the books will comprise a selection of writing about the particular city. There will be no glossy photographs, just simple line drawings and black and white text.

City-lit Paris is due to be published on March 31st and is described as the perfect city break guide to la vie parisienne. From Joanne Harris, Julian Barnes, Kate Mosse and Irène Némirovsky to Stephen Clarke, Gertrude Stein, Proust and Claude Izner, over seventy extraordinary writers provide the perfect Paris companion. Other city-lit guides to be published in 2009 include London, Berlin, Amsterdam and Dublin with titles in 2010 to include Istanbul, Mumbai, New York and Rome.