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Being the capital of England it is no surprising that London is the most popular city to visit, but why not choose a number of novels to inspire you to visit London instead of simply heading straight for the usual tourist traps.Â
Novels to Inspire You to Visit London
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks
London, the week before Christmas, 2007.
Seven wintry days to track the lives of seven characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book-reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on skunk and reality TV; and a Tube driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Still in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed older man. Away from her Bangladeshi village, home is now a cramped flat in a high-rise block in London’s East End. Nazneen knows not a word of English, and is forced to depend on her husband.
Confined in her tiny flat, Nazneen sews furiously for a living, shut away with her buttons and linings – until the radical Karim steps unexpectedly into her life. On a background of racial conflict and tension, they embark on a love affair that forces Nazneen finally to take control of her fate.
Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding
As Bridget documents her struggles through the social minefield of her thirties and tries to weigh up the eternal question (Daniel Cleaver or Mark Darcy?), she turns for support to four indispensable friends: Shazzer, Jude, Tom and a bottle of chardonnay.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
This collection includes many of the famous cases – and great strokes of brilliance – that made the legendary Sherlock Holmes one of fiction’s most popular creations.
With his devoted amanuensis, Dr Watson, Holmes emerges from his smoke filled rooms in Baker Street to grapple with the forces of treachery, intrigue and evil in such cases as ‘The Speckled Band’, in which a terrified woman begs their help in solving the mystery surrounding her sister’s death, or ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, which portrays a European king blackmailed by his mistress. In ‘Silver Blaze’ the pair investigate the disappearance of a racehorse and the violent murder of its trainer, while in ‘The Final Problem’ Holmes at last comes face to face with his nemesis, the diabolical Professor Moriarty – ‘the Napoleon of crime’.
Brixton Rock by Alex Wheatle
Set against the backdrop of the Brixton race riots in London in the 1980s, this novel tells a story of overcoming obstacles from a teen’s perspective. Brenton Brown, a 16-year-old mixed-race youth, has lived in a children’s home all his life and is haunted by the absence of his mother. Complications arise, however, when he finally meets his mother and then falls dangerously in love with his half-sister. Killer Terry Flynn also scars Brenton’s life and leaves him wanting revenge.
Through it all, this determined teen is driven to pursue education and recognize his true self in the midst of chaos.
Capital by John Lanchester
The residents of Pepys Road, London – a banker and his shopaholic wife, an elderly woman dying of a brain tumour, the Pakistani family who run the local shop, the young football star from Senegal and his minder – all receive anonymous postcards with a simple message: We Want What You Have. Who is behind it? What do they want?
As the mystery of the postcards deepens, the world around Pepys Road is turned upside down by the financial crash and all of its residents’ lives change beyond recognition over the course of the next year.
From the bestselling author of Whoops! and How to Speak Money comes a post-financial crisis, state-of-the-nation novel told with compassion, humour and unflinching truth.
London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins
It is 1938 and the prospect of war hangs over every London inhabitant. But the city doesn’t stop. Everywhere people continue to work, drink, fall in love, fight and struggle to get on in life.
At the lodging-house at No.10 Dulcimer Street, Kennington, the buttoned-up clerk Mr Josser returns home with the clock he has received as a retirement gift. The other residents include faded actress Connie; tinned food-loving Mr Puddy; widowed landlady Mrs Vizzard (whose head is turned by her new lodger, a self-styled ‘Professor of Spiritualism’); and flashy young mechanic Percy Boon, whose foray into stolen cars descends into something much, much worse…
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Oliver is an orphan living on the dangerous London streets with no one but himself to rely on. Fleeing from poverty and hardship, he falls in with a criminal street gang who will not let him go, however hard he tries to escape.
In Oliver Twist, Dickens graphically conjures up the capital’s underworld, full of prostitutes, thieves and lost and homeless children, and gives a voice to the disadvantaged and abused.
Small Island by Andrea Levy
It is 1948, and England is recovering from a war. But at 21 Nevern Street, London, the conflict has only just begun. Queenie Bligh’s neighbours do not approve when she agrees to take in Jamaican lodgers, but Queenie doesn’t know when her husband will return, or if he will come back at all. What else can she do?
Gilbert Joseph was one of the several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. It’s desperation that makes him remember a wartime friendship with Queenie and knock at her door.
Gilbert’s wife Hortense, too, had longed to leave Jamaica and start a better life in England. But when she joins him she is shocked to find London shabby, decrepit, and far from the golden city of her dreams. Even Gilbert is not the man she thought he was…
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber
So begins this irresistible voyage into the dark side of Victorian London. Amongst an unforgettable cast of low-lifes, physicians, businessmen and prostitutes, meet our heroine Sugar, a young woman trying to drag herself up from the gutter any way she can.
Be prepared for a mesmerising tale of passion, intrigue, ambition and revenge.
What books inspire you to visit London?
Let me know in the comments.
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Since I live in London, I don’t really need inspiration to travel here. But doesn’t mean I don’t like reading books about London. My two favourite books about London would probably be ‘Tunnel Vision’ by Keith Lowe, where the guy is challenged to travel to every single tube station in the network in a single day. And ‘London’ by Edward Rutherford. A rather long book, that covers pretty much the entire history of London from the very first settlements until after WWII. If you haven’t read either of them, I really would urge you to give them a try.
Oooh! I love the sound of “Tunnel Vision” – will definitely add this to my list of books to read.
Thanks for the recommendations.