87 books like Diary of a Nobody

Henry Mayhew’s sprawling record of nineteenth-century London can be overwhelming, but his ear for the vernacular and eye for weird detail means that the reader can dip in and find something.

London’s population exploded in the nineteenth century, bulked out by a huge number of itinerant workers. Mayhew interviews these people–in the prologue to the first volume, he describes himself as a "traveller in the undiscovered country of the poor"–and because he gives no judgment on their lives, the book feels more like a modern documentary.

The voices are one thing; Mayhew’s statistics are another–"expenditure in ham sandwiches supplied by street sellers is £1,820 yearly…a consumption of 436,800 sandwiches." Anyone who thinks that Dickens’ writes grotesques should read this. The first book that really brought old London alive for me. 

I know Dickens is an obvious choice, but he’s so good, and there’s so much to choose from, from legal London in Bleak House to the Thames scavengers at the start of Our Mutual Friend. But if you’re going to choose one–and you really should–take Little Dorrit.

First, the story is great all the way through, from the opening in Marseilles to the cataclysmic downfall of the House of Clennam. It’s strongly moral, with Dickens’ ironbound support for the underdog and his ever-present ability to make the reader seethe at injustice (I struggled to finish Martin Chuzzlewit, for example, because Seth Pecksniff made my blood boil so hard) and has less of the sugary sentiment that pollutes a lot of his other books.

It’s funny, moving, and for a modern-day Londoner, it's interesting because so much of the landscape remains in place; you can still visit Bleeding Heart… show more.

This isn’t a London book per se, although the city features fairly regularly. Instead, it’s a hybrid examination of how a mob thinks and the ways people behave when they live cheek-by-jowl.

Mackay’s seminal work is still relevant, especially the chapters on financial manias like the Tulipomania and the South Sea Bubble; People Never Learn seems to be his main lesson.

The book is hard to describe but includes some of the weirder urban crazes. In the chapter on Popular Follies of Great Cities, for example, he discusses slang trends. Apparently, asking, ‘Has your mother sold her mangle?’ would reduce everyone to fits in mid-19th century London. As he notes, ‘the popular humours of a great city are a never-failing source of amusement’ 

I love comics, and here is the Master at the top of his game.

Ostensibly, it’s a reimagination of the Whitechapel Murders, how this narrative has been handed down to us, and a final dissection of and dismissal of its meaning. But like all his stuff, it’s brimful of ideas, notably an exploration of psychogeography, the effect of geography and architecture on behaviour.

Plenty of other London writers, like Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, also explore this, in greater depth, but Moore made me see it most clearly. Maybe because of the visual medium of the work? Perhaps. But the idea of a city that echoes and re-echoes with emotional triggers is really exciting. 

This one had me on the edge of my seat. More telling for me to be thrown back in time to the 1960s. I didn’t live this life, but the background was familiar. I remember the Kray brothers and I did once briefly have a job in the sleazy sort of club where the boss had his goons hold a guy so he could punch him in the gut. Scary. Simon Michael’s story is all too believable and it is a testament to his ability to pull me into that world that it threw up long-gone memories. The story is told in first person which works to keep you guessing along with the protagonist barrister sleuth. For me it was a thrill ride into the past.

This novel perfectly captures the frenetic pleasure-seeking ethos of the youth of the English upper classes after the horrors of WW1- unsurpsingly, as it is written by one of them.

Evelyn Waugh was one of the Bright Young People, as they became known, who tore round London in sports cars, snatching at policemen’s helmets for the treasure hunts they loved.

This is a gorgeous book to be savoured slowly.

It is suffused with music throughout (and the nerd within me loves the reoccurring literary motifs and phrases that definitely lend a musical quality to the book) and took me back to lazy summer days as a teenager when I first moved to London and the city felt wide open with excitement and possibility.

This is another love story, but one about community, family and the first loves that we learn from our parents.

Only one night with a handsome stranger in London? This has been my dream forever, and once I read this blurb, I immediately one clicked.

Sandi Lynn made me feel like I was literally living this, and I found it almost impossible to drag my eyes away. I wanted this book to continue forever, and if you haven't read it already, you need to.

You like your small, introspective, architecture-of-a-marriage stories? Well, here’s the Romance version. Nothing really happens, plot-wise. It is simply a masterclass of two characters matched in every way that matters, ready to destroy everything they could potentially have because they’re scared of getting hurt. Humorous. Hot. Nerdy. Incisive. Affecting. This will introduce you to the basic foundation of Historical Romance—essentially, “the marriage plot”—in the quiet way you’re looking for.

With Charles Dickens investigating, I had to check this out. The author’s imaginative use of Dickens as a sleuth is rooted in facts new to me. I didn’t know he had set up a sanctuary for fallen women, for example. Having read much Dickens, I found the voice authentic. His Victorian world, so intense in his novels, was equally immersive here – the poverty, the dirt, the inequality – and I became thoroughly involved in the story and the unfolding investigation. If an author can draw me into their world and hold me… this did, due to impressive detailed research. I was particularly struck by the compassion visible in this Dickens which made me realise how much his books also demonstrate this aspect of his character.