Cities are essentially palimpsests, layered with overlapping lives, structures, and stories. Constantly in flux, each city is a sprawling and unwieldy text that is continually being rewritten. In Mirror Sydney, Vanessa Berry peels back many of the Harbour City’s layers, to reveal a tangle of hidden meanings and bygone inhabitants. Her book takes us on an eccentric journey through forgotten parts of the city’s history, suburbs, and architecture, while mounting a persuasive argument for paying closer attention to our surrounds.