A story told through statistics, linked to each stop on a London Tube line. That’s The 32 Stops in one sentence. But as boring as that may seem, it definitely isn’t. I think it’s a great way to talk about statistics, and to demonstrate the inequality of different areas in Britain. It looks at crime rates, GCSE scores, income and percentage of children living below the poverty line. In the space of a minute or two of travel, life expectancy and income can change dramatically.

The story of the Central Line is told over one Saturday, with a vignette for each stop. Interestingly, the western and eastern points are quite similar demographically. In between, it’s a mix from the very rich (hello Bank) to the very poor. Incomes, education and ethnicities all change on that one trip. In some places, you might be more likely to end up in prison. In others, your GCSE might be higher. Some areas have a higher number of rich immigrants. Some have great-grandmothers in their fifties. There is an incredible range here, from the expensive apartments to the council housing. Danny Dorling is well appointed to tell the reader the story, being a professor of social science and having published on the inequalities of those in England. The way he knits together the tables of statistics and makes them into little stories of nameless people (some who fit the average and some who are on the ends of the bell curve) really brings the numbers to life. (Plus, if you’re interested in the data, the book is extensively referenced…must read some of those ward newsletters one day).

It’s a quirky idea and may not fit everyone’s tastes. I thought it was a great taster in social geography as well as giving some eye-opening facts in an open way and linking it to people you might see in your travels. (Not to mention the dinner party useless fact that most bankers do live in Bank).

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What statistics on London! The average life expectancy drops with 10 years if you travel for a few minutes. A lot of bankers do live around the Bank subway station. An average income differs huge amounts depending on where you live (surprise, surprise).

All in all, this is a very lubricated experiment in mixing factual numbers with fiction, and the outcome is sublime, chocking and very intelligently written about sociology, everyday life, crime, monetary factors, family life and all else that permeates the modern person when it comes to numbers and living. It's a lot better than I make it out to be. ( )

The 32 Stops is a small 164 page book by Danny Dorling assessing quality of life indicators along part of the Central Line. It is a book that sits within the Penguin Underground collection of books on each of the Underground lines. Dorling has put together a set of social statistics on things like educational attainment, household income, or bankers for 23 of the areas near stations on the line. Alongside the stats and tables are fictional accounts of household lives.

32 Stops is fairly accessible and tries to make the stats cool. The stats are the best things about the book. The scale ofdifferentiation along the line is noticeable. For those who have spent decades on the Central Line the trajectory of the data largely bears out expectations. Dorling's skill is in presenting nuance of statistics on things like voting patterns to help build an analytical picture of the different communities spread out across the line. It is fascinating stuff and well presented.

However, there are a number of disappointments about 32 Stops. It is clearly written from a leftist populist perspective. Use of the word 'bankers' as code for the rich already feels dated just a couple of years later. The crude terminology does not fit with Dorling's clearly much deeper understanding of social strata which includes people living along the line many times wealthier than a banker. Dorling's analysis is also quite thin. It does not really break down the communities along the line into constituent parts. The profile of who lives where is not really captured in his narrative snapshots. Each station has a story but that story does not particularly tell the tale from the perspective of people who live there. Dorling is not a Londoner. Frankly it shows. The Central Line is a vibrant mix of peoples but there's no real feel for that in any of his stories. Those stories are overly self-referential and clog up the data points Dorling makes much more interestingly.

It doesn't help that Dorling hasn't bothered to include much of the Central Line. Forget it if you live on the Ealing Broadway or Hainault branches. Don't bother if you live east of Woodford. Dorling recognises the cultural boundary in Leytonstone between London and Essex. How much more interesting it would be to keep the story going through Loughton to Epping. The people who live east of Wanstead do not really have their stories told here at all. Let alone what story those who live in North Weald or Ongar might be able to tell after their part of this glorious red line was taken away.

The title is not a great start. The cultural reference to The 39 Steps is so subtle as to be non-existent. It might be funny but 32 Stops is not a number really associated with the Central Line. It is the worst klnd of humour - intellectually smug without being either funny or clever.

To Dorling's credit there is an extensive set of references at the back detailing what was clearly a fascinating set of research to put the work together. The data and anecotal stats are really interesting. The heart of the book and the tale it tells is the analytical story of different and non-equal groups of people living at the various points along the line. The snapshots of life are generally inaccurate caricatures but the underlying numbers are fascinating. Dorling's work is really good when in his voice outlining the implications of the data. ( )

This is another enthralling volume from Penguin's series on London's Underground lines. Danny Dorling offers up a series of vignettes of local life set in the area immediately surrounding each station on the Central Line (the bright red one from the map), and then compares various aspects of the socio-economic data from the census. This provides a fascinating insight into the manner in which adjacent communities differ, and how life expectancy can vary markedly between two communities that are just a couple of miles apart,.

Dorling looks at a wide range of comparators such as GCSE results, lie expectancy and average income as well as a selection of health-based statistics. My description of this is probably doing the book a dreadful disservice as it probably sounds very dry, but the book is actually completely engrossing. I would welcome the same sort of analysis across some of the other lines, and maybe of the wards and boroughs that the M25 passes through I accept that I am a bit of a geek! ( )

The Central Line, as its name implies, cuts through the heart of central London, traveling from West Ruislip station in Hillingdon eastward to its terminus at Epping station in Essex. It passes through several key junctions with other lines en route, particularly those at Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, Bank and Stratford stations. It is the longest Underground line, as the journey from West Ruislip to Epping is nearly 55 kilometers (just over 34 miles), and it serves over 260 million passengers every year. Service between the Shepherd's Bush and Bank Stations began in 1900, and the line was lengthened considerably in the years following World War II.

Danny Dorling, a professor of human geography at the University of Sheffield, has written widely on social inequalities in England. In The 32 Stops: The Central Line, he applies that topic by comparing and contrasting the average General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) scores, life expectancies, percentage of children in poverty, household incomes, etc. of the residents who live in the neighborhoods served by 32 of the 49 stops on the Central Line. Each station includes a brief narrative about a typical person or family that lives there, which is interspersed by the author's descriptions of the differences and similarities of those who live from one station to the next, which are enhanced by graphs and charts.

Although I applaud Dorling's work in elucidating the human geography of the Londoners who live alongside the Central Line, I did not enjoy reading this book. The narratives felt contrived and quickly became tiresome to read, especially when the characters began to quote statistics that enhanced Dorling's points but seemed forced and surreal. Other than very brief descriptions at the beginning and end of the book there was no discussion of the Central Line itself, which made this a very dry and tasteless read, similar to eating a dessicated turkey breast on Irish soda bread. ( )