Reviewed by Aviva
Pete Jordan is a bike enthusiast who has lived and cycled in a number of cities in the US. When he came to the Netherlands, sight unseen, to do a degree in urban planning, he found himself surrounded by a cycling culture beyond his wildest dreams. In In the City of Bikes: The History of the Amsterdam Cyclist, Jordan tells the story of his family’s immersion into this culture, and the history of the bike and cyclists in Amsterdam decade by decade. His love for his subjects, both personal and historical, shines through and the massive amount of time his must have spent in archives researching his subject truly payed off. The chapters covering the Second World War alone are worth the price of the book, which is not to say you won’t be entertained and charmed by all the other chapters.
I will admit that I read Jordan’s earlier work, Dishwasher, and wasn’t that impressed, but if this book is any indication, he seems to have matured into a fantastic storyteller and found his voice as a travel writer. It’s hard to imagine anyone writing engagingly for 400 pages about anything as specific as the history of biking in Amsterdam, but this is exactly what Pete Jordan has accomplished. In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist is a well-researched, entertainingly-written love letter to city of Amsterdam and its two-wheeled inhabitants.
As a committed pedestrian, I have cursed the lawlessness of Amsterdam’s cyclists on numerous occasions. After reading this book, though, I can’t help but admire the democratized anarchy of the two-wheeled Amsterdammers and what they represent. One of the reasons I picked this book is because I will soon be leaving Amsterdam, and reading it made me realize I’ll miss it even more than I thought.
Leanne Delehanty was born in 1948, of Irish parents. She lived in America until she was 16. She then left for Europe, where she worked and studied for many years. Her first publication was in New York, by ‘The Small Spiral Notebook’, a magazine for international writers. In 2006, ‘Jimmy and the Pink Diamond’ was translated and published in The Netherlands. Her next children’s book, ‘The Tiger and the Star’ is awaiting publication. Her last book, ‘The Brussels Legacy’ has just been edited. She has had many international art exhibitions, and there are world-wide collectors of her paintings. She has studied in Paris, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Boston and Amsterdam. Leanne Delehanty has been living and working in Amsterdam since 1988. She is a former member of the SCBWI, and her work was featured in their international summer conference in Los Angeles, 2008.