A new edition of an interesting alternative guide to Cardiff, with special attention to venues not actually on the tourist route, some locations having disappeared as new developments take place, with a useful bibliography and index. 63 black-and-white photographs and 1 map.

Argraffiad newydd o gyfeirlyfr diddorol i ddinas Caerdydd, gyda sylw arbennig i fannau nad ydynt fel arfer ar lwybr yr ymwelydd, rhai lleoliadau wedi diflannu er mwyn gwneud lle i ddatblygiadau newydd, gyda llyfryddiaeth a mynegai defnyddiol. 63 ffotograff du-a-gwyn ac 1 map.

A century ago Cardiff was granted city status, although exactly what difference that makes in practical terms to the way in which an urban conurbation functions never seems very clear. As that centenary is being celebrated, Cardiff has taken to marketing itself – with the usual quotient of veracity that slogan-mongers find acceptable – as Europe's youngest capital. These are roles that Cardiff had been rehearsing for some time. When city status was granted, Cardiff was an imperial city, supplying the world with its prime energy source, coal, so that the Severn Sea resembled today's Persian Gulf in terms of geopolitical strategic significance. The granting of a Welsh Assembly a century later has made a Cardiff address as fashionable as it is necessary with a plethora of national institutions making their making their home in the capital. Indeed, by the last quarter of the twentieth century, Cardiff had replaced London as the magnet for the country's ambitious youth. Cardiff was the undisputed capital of 'Cool Cymru'.

With this pearl of a guide, like one of those professionals so necessary to hire in Fez, we dart up side alleys, through gaps in the wall and over fences to visit those parts of Cardiff other guides would never reach. The author's style is racy and city slick, the quirky punctuation and syntax more often than not intentional. His ears and eyes are alert for every detail. Cardiff's limits are defined by its peculiar accent, with its nasal ‘a’ as in ‘a pint of dark in The Park’. These limits are precisely located, not just as north of Whitchurch but as north of the Melingriffith Weir And did Disraeli really overnight hereabouts at the Cow and Snuffers? This immensely readable book is full of such gems.

Cardiff as cultural capital gets short shrift. Neither the city's world class opera company nor its orchestra merits a mention in the book's useful Index. The increasing prominence of the Welsh language in the city seems to leave the author somewhat bemused. In imperial Cardiff, a waitress might well have told you that she'd heard the weather was bad in Wales. That distance, between the city and its hinterland, has been dramatically closed by Cardiff's recently consolidated function as Welsh capital. Our guide resists Welsh respectability: in Charles Street, no mention is made of several places of worship, some of them of considerable architectural interest, but we learn that the street has a cluster of gay bars on its eastern side.

Peter Finch is that rarity in the city, a native born and bred. He has memory, that strong and necessary antidote to contemporary marketing. His sympathies are with the small traders of the Arcades and the Hayes Island Snack Bar rather than with the retail giants of the glossy shopping malls or out-of-town retail parks. His tour is unashamedly pedestrian. As he remarks on one occasion, with ironic exasperation, ‘there's just too much transport going on here’. He knows where the city's lost rivers still run, that the Pearl Tower is built on a mediaeval plague burial pit, and is able to savour the deep time of Caerau iron age hill-fort in the midst of the Ely housing estate. He speaks eloquently for communities who have survived the best efforts of the Luftwaffe and the city planners to obliterate them and that continue to resist the refashioning of late twentieth century marketing boys. Tiger Bay and Muslim Butetown are not yet Cardiff Bay. Above all, the author is also a poet and a dozen of his poems – my favourite was 'Shop-lifting', based on his experience as manager of the splendid Oriel book shop, the passing of which he rightly laments – adorn the text. A generous sprinkling of bizarre brownie thumbnail black-and-white photographs are a perfect complement to what we gradually realise is not simply a brilliant guidebook but the moving autobiography of a poet.

David Barnes

It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.

Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatad Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.