deadpoetsmusings:readingcities:Any good London book recommendations? I’m heading there for a work tr

deadpoetsmusings:readingcities:Any good London book recommendations? I’m heading there for a work trip in a few weeks and trying to soak up some atmospheric London fiction in the meantime. This slim but rich Booker Prize winner from Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore, follows a band of misfits living in houseboats on the Thames in the 1970s…perfect for my current reading mood.Can anyone recommend some atmospheric novels set in London? These are some of my favourite books set in London:Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate AtkinsonWhite Teeth by Zadie SmithJonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna ClarkeThe Picture of the Dorian Gray by Oscar WildeI second the recommendations of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and White Teeth! My London fiction recommendations are largely oldies-but-goodies, that cemented the city’s place in my imagination long before I first visited it:The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (or the whole canon.) Holmes knows the dirt and dust of every part of this expanding late-Victorian city and he loves it. And I love him.Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens. Pick a Dickens novel, any Dickens novel… but really, pick this one, his last finished work, for its warm and humane vision, its gift to the world of “Podsnappery,” its unusually three-dimensional women and Jewish characters. And, of course, the rich portrayals of London, its people, its neighborhoods, its river.Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf. I have no coherent words about this novel. It is a masterpiece. It is one of the great achievements of the 20th century. It is not of an age, but for all time. It is, among other things, about London in a profound way.The Jeeves and Wooster sequence, P.G. Wodehouse. I recommend this entire corpus on principle. It defies explanation. It defies the sorrows of the world. And Wodehouse’s gift for using the English language was praised by none other than Evelyn Waugh, so.Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman. Read it on the Tube.Daniel Deronda, George Eliot. I love this novel with a great love. It is about class and gender and faith and religion and identity in a rapidly changing Victorian society and… did I mention I love it? I also love its protagonists (and there’s a good miniseries adaptation, too, though there’s more women’s solidarity in the novel.)The Wimsey novels, Dorothy L. Sayers. I’m always recommending these books. Because they’re great. The first, Whose Body? and one of the standouts of the series, Murder Must Advertise, are richly about London, as is Strong Poison, which introduces Harriet Vane, fabulous university-educated novelist and accused poisoner. -- source link

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