What to read to understand cities

Three classic literary portraits of great metropolises

Athens by Kevin Andrews (1967)

A maverick American who arrived in Greece as the tragedy of the civil war unfolded, Kevin Andrews brilliantly sketched his adopted city before Greece leapt from donkey to Mercedes. This is a lyrical, learned, loving portrait: Andrews captures something eternal, even while railing against the homogenisation the world towed in (he knew nothing of the concrete horrors of the 1970s, let alone the modern ravages of Airbnb). Pack this slim volume in your knapsack: you will still recognise the purple evanescence that floats over the Acropolis at sunset.

Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk (2005)

More shattering change, redeemed this time by lyrical prose, family stories and vivid topical description. Orhan Pamuk documents his own immediate lineage alongside that of the Bosphorus, both stories rippling in the currents of history as well as the warpy reservoirs of memory. Essays on Turkish figures (writers, for example) unfamiliar to the average British reader – me, I mean – serve as ballast. This urban portrait looks inward and out: many writers have tried to pull that off, but few succeed like Pamuk. Maureen Freely’s super translation helps.

Venice by Jan Morris (1960)

An immediate bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic, Venice was the first pure expression of Jan Morris’s signature style: a touch of purple, a throwaway parenthetical remark, a little old-school grandstanding and an instinct for matching form with content. The author had moved to the second floor of a palazzo on the Grand Canal for research purposes, and when she heard the postman yell “Morris!”, she lowered a basket on a rope to collect the mail. She presents La Serenissima as a stage on which things happen, whereas previous books had shown it as still life.

Sara Wheeler’s Jan Morris: A Life is published by Faber (£25). Order a copy from The Observer Shop for £21.25. Delivery charges may apply

Photograph by HelgaQ/Alamy