Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Noniction
A History of London
(Inwood), topping out at 1,000 pages, covers 2,000 years.
London
(Ackroyd) takes the form of a biography rather than a conventional history.
Elizabeth's
London
(Picard) re-creates 16th-century life in the era of England's first great queen.
Originally published in the
New Yorker
magazine,
Letters from London
(Barnes) cap-
tures life in the city in the early 1990s. The topic
84, Charing Cross Road
is a collection
of letters between a stiff-upper-lip London bookseller and a witty writer, Helene Hanff,
in the post-WWII years. (Also worth reading is the sequel,
The Duchess of Bloomsbury
Street
.) Although not specific to London, consider
Notes from a Small Island,
which is
chock-full of Bill Bryson's witty observations about Great Britain. Dava Sobel's
Longit-
ude
—a must-read if you plan to visit Greenwich—tells the story of the clockmaker who
solved a problem that had thwarted previous geniuses. Kids of all ages enjoy the whim-
sical and colorful impressions of the city in Miroslav Sasek's classic picture-book
This Is
London
.
Fiction
Describing the classics of British literature is a book in itself. But some favorites that fea-
ture London include
Pygmalion
(Shaw), the story of a young Cockney girl groomed for
high society;
Persuasion,
a beloved Jane Austen book partially set in Bath; and Charles
Dickens' tale of a workhouse urchin,
Oliver Twist
.
Dating from the turn of the century, P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves series, with a problem-
solving valet as the lead character, has endured.
A Study in Scarlet
(Doyle) introduced the
world to detective Sherlock Holmes.
Edward Rutherfurd's
London,
which begins in ancient times and continues through to
the 20th century, is as big and sprawling as its namesake.
The Jupiter Myth
(Davis) takes
place in the days when the city was called Londinium. In
The Great Stink
(Clark), the
sewer system is also a metaphor for the blight that plagued the city.
Lucia in London
(Benson) sends the protagonist of this 1920s series to the big city.
Helen Fielding created another well-loved heroine in her
Bridget Jones
books, which
began in the late 1990s as a newspaper column (and inspired two fun films).
Confessions
of a Shopaholic
(Kinsella) continues the Bridget Jones formula. Nick Hornby explores a
young male perspective of life and love in
Fever Pitch, High Fidelity,
and
About a Boy.
London's movers and shakers commit bad deeds in the detective story
In the Presence
of the Enemy
(George).
Murder in Mayfair
(Barnard) is based on a true crime from the
1980s.
Rumpole of the Bailey,
created by Sir John Mortimer, is a popular detective series,
spawning both books and television shows.
Ian McEwan's highly praised post-9/11 novel,
Saturday,
takes place over the course
of a day all over the sprawling city. Many recent works feature the city's thriving immig-
