The main problem with guidebooks, in my view, is that as the little girl said about the book on butterflies, they tell you a lot more than you ever wanted to know. I remember staggering around Paris years ago with a couple of guidebooks that took so long to consult that we lost crucial hours just planning our sorties. Which is why I'm very taken with the LUXE City Guides - they tell you exactly the things you want to know, in crisp prose (no superfluous adjectives or intellectual showing-off) and they wrap it all up in a light fold-away format that would fit into a man's breastpocket or easily into most women's handbags. And they are only £4.99 a time.

One has only to meet Grant Thatcher, the LUXE City Guides founder, inspiration and sifter-in-chief, to understand at once why they seem to exude the sort of judgments one feels instinctively one can trust. A former actor with very picky tastes who stays in every single hotel and eats in every restaurant LUXE rates, he came to do the guides because there wasn't a book around that told him the sort of things he wanted to know. His first was on Bangkok, where he was living at the time, followed swiftly by Hong Kong (where he now lives), and both took off like a rocket - most interestingly, even those who lived in the two cities were carrying them around.

Some years on and there are now 28 City Guides (Florence, New York, Rome, Paris just to name four). I'm writing about them now because LUXE London is about to be published (from June 1 you'll be able to buy it in Waterstone's) and since that has been my beat for more years than I'm going to tell you about here, I thought I'd check it out. The reason I'm now so keen on these guides is that he loves the sort of places I love, such as Ormonde Jayne for scents, or Alfie's for antiques, but also he told me a lot of things I didn't know - it's not often that that happens.

Thatcher has, for instance, uncovered Sangorski & Sutcliffe (30 Great Guildford Street, London SE1), which is, he says, like walking into the British Museum - it's filled with antiquarian books and the most heavenly leathers of every kind. It also sells gorgeous notebooks (always of interest to those who scribble for a living) which start at £15.

Then there's Caroline Groves & Felix Spicer (37 Chiltern Street, W1) - Caroline does amazing shoes based on classic Victorian button boots, which she trims with 18th-century buckles, while Felix is obsessed with Victorian hairpins and produces fabrics embellished with hairpin prints.

Elliot Rhodes is a little shop Thatcher discovered at 79 Long Acre, WC2, which offers some 200 belts that can be combined with any of 800 different buckles - if you can't find a belt that suits you then you're more than picky, you're impossible.

Cassie Mercantile is a little-known gem-like source of vintage clothing. There might be some Ossie Clark, some textiles going back to the 17th century, some Biba. She lives in Holland Park, and you have to make an appointment by telephone (020-7610 4000).

Tom Davies (020-8948 7115) has a wild and wonderful selection of what these days is known as “eyewear” - he'll adapt his own frames to your face. Finally, before I give away all of the LUXE guide's secrets, there is Catherine West, the personal shopper Grant Thatcher rates most highly.

It is perfectly true that there are other tightly edited guides - Wallpaper's City Guides for instance are small and informative, and the Hg2 Guides offer a hedonist's guide to some 19 cities. But somehow I still think the LUXE version is the one I'll tuck into my purse next time I'm travelling to a city.

For stockists, ring 01903 828501or visit www.luxecityguides.com.

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