Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley: Londongrad

Depending on what you're buying this book for, it's either fascinating reading or a bit of a bore. Titled, Londongrad the book aims to chronicle the rise of London as the city of choice for newly rich Russian migr s. Some 600,000 of them in all, but in particular this book focus on the dozen of so wealthy oligarchs that control a vast amount of wealth and Russia's natural resources. The name are familiar to most tabloid readers either in association with their gilded age-style spending or their friendships with British politicians; Abramovich, Berezovsky, Deripaska...

The book tries to be a balanced account of the histories of these individuals, their effect on Russia and London both economically and socially and the political tension this has caused between Russian and the UK - a tension which may have even led to murder.

However for all it good intentions of being a balanced reportage all this book really seems to want to be is a slightly more wordy version of Hello! magazine. The authors spend a huge amount of time talking ad nausea about the boats, the art, the clothes, the homes, the planes and the travel of these super-rich Russians. To the point where so much wealth becomes ever so slightly boring.

All of these men (and one woman) have had amazingly interesting lives rising from being penniless orphans or impoverished farm workers to becoming some of the wealthiest people on the planet. These stories would be fascinating enough but they are only given a cursory airing to explain what this person or that person can by this yacht or that plane. It's amazing reading about such wealth could be tedious.

The book's most interesting chapters are about the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko. It's macabre and very Gothic that such things continue to happen in this day and age.

Not quite a business book, not quite a biography it's hard to know who to recommend this book to. If you enjoy reading about hugely conspicuous wealth you'll love it. If you're trying to really understand the reasons these people are the ones who control it, you'll be left with more than a few questions.