The most recommended books about London

This is another book about death that will also make you laugh.

I appreciate how direct this book is while still managing to be tender and sensitive. And the artwork matches the tone of the text well. Death looks both friendly and a little creepy.

It may not be for every family, but I love how oddly funny and heartbreaking this book is. 

This book is carefully researched and gives fascinating insights into the area around London’s docks. Rule begins her account in Roman times and takes the story through into the twenty-first century. She is committed to explaining how London’s docks, which employed around 100,000 men some sixty years ago, could so quickly have been swept away, and she shows huge sympathy for the people who lived and worked in the area. What I especially like is the range of sources she uses, from archaeological records to personal interviews.

Although this guide to the many English towns and cities associated with Charles Dodgson, the author of Alice, is now more than 20 years old, it remains the most accessible and comprehensive Carrollian guide for the literary tourist. Lovett, a former President of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America, provides admirably clear directions accompanied by over 200 illustrations and photographs, many coming from his own extensive collection. To quote from the cover text, Lovett takes the reader ‘from the tiny Cheshire village of Dodgson’s birth to the Surrey hillside that provides his final resting place … on a journey through Victorian Britain like no other’. True enough, and in between come locations in, most importantly, Yorkshire, Rugby, Oxford, London, the Isle of Wight, and Eastbourne.

The stories in Kathleen Baldwin’s My Notorious Aunt series are full of quirky heroines, swoon-worthy heroes, and delightful situations, but this one is one of her best. A messy breakup, in public, sets the hero and heroine on the rocky road to reconciliation, with plenty of complications along the way. You’ll be rooting for their happily-ever-after.

I’m kicking off with a novel that isn’t a conventional crime story, in that there’s no detective, but there are several heinous crimes, all of which are resolved by the end.

It’s not an exaggeration to say I envy anyone who hasn’t yet read Fingersmith. Unashamedly drawing on the sensation fiction of Wilkie Collins, it has a twist that saw me actually yelping out loud in surprise. But the book is so much more than that.

Starting in London, 1862, we are introduced to Sue Trinder, a young woman entrenched in the criminal underworld. When she agrees to join forces with the sinister Gentleman to hoodwink a young heiress, Sue has no idea exactly what she’s involving herself in.

This book has it all. It’s beautifully written, with phenomenal pace and intrigue, but also with a wonderful love story at its core. If you haven’t read it, what on… show more.

A few years ago my family decided to cut back on our consumption of meat. One of the world’s most famous vegetarian chefs, Yotam Ottolenghi, came to my rescue in the form of this cookbook, which has truly expanded my ideas of how vegetables, grains, and other plant-based foods can be prepared. The chapters are organized by ingredient, which is handy if you shop your farmer’s market and need some ideas on how to prepare those gorgeous eggplants or the bumper crop of green beans you’ve brought home. The unexpected combinations and preparations have given me permission to be more creative with how I prepare vegetables. Some of the more unusual recipes that I’ve loved include Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce; Tomato, Semolina, and Cilantro Soup; and Broccoli and Gorgonzola Pie. 

Stone looks specifically at the evolution of the Port of London from Roman times to the present day. His enthusiasm for London’s history is evident on every page. The book is well-paced, accessible, and combines a broad chronological sweep with interesting side-stories which help to bring the pages to life. Clear maps showing trade routes and the growth of London’s dock complex greatly help the reader.

And this choice is a sneaky one: it was published in 1826, but it’s actually set in the late 21st century. I couldn’t resist including it for three reasons: it’s a product of the 1820s (and deals with several social concerns of the time, such as republicanism), it’s written by a woman (and my other four choices aren’t), and its rather apposite storyline concerns a mysterious pandemic that rapidly sweeps across the entire globe, ultimately resulting in the near-extinction of humanity (leaving just the last man)… It wasn’t popular at the time – widely considered to be Shelley’s weakest work – but to be fair to her, she was simply ahead of the game and had invented the genre of dystopian fiction. Read in that light, it’s a brave and fascinating work.  

First off, I must admit I’m a bit embarrassed it took me so long to finally read this literary gem!

I knew I would love Zadie Smith’s White Teeth within the first few sentences. I’m a fan of the candid wit of Brits and loved how imaginative and biting Smith’s storytelling is throughout. There was a freshness in engaging with characters who were flawed, inappropriate, and messy – yet they had such a strong desire for defining and owning their identity, I found myself relating to and forgiving their preposterous behavior.

As a mixed-race woman of color, I could feel the internal and external tensions the characters faced, finding their struggles extremely relatable and important to consider in our current moment in time.

I learnt so much from this book when I was writing my biography of Chaucer. It is hard to find out information about childhood in history, and yet it is impossible to try to understand a society if we don’t know how children were brought up, what games they played, how they were educated, what adolescence was like. This book tells us about all those things. You can find out about how children learnt to read, what happened to orphans, the opportunities for pre-marital sex. Looking at a wide range of historical records and literary texts, Hanawalt pieces together a remarkably complete picture of medieval childhood. Looking at causes of death, for example, tells her where male and female children spent their time and what they were likely to be doing (boys were more likely to be outside). And archaeological finds reveal what kinds of toys children played with. Fascinating… show more.