Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Recommend me some quintessential British fiction

62 replies

Fishpond · 12/06/2012 01:08

I'm American and have read a fair bit of the British "classics" but I'm looking for the ones that fly a little further under the radar.

Disclaimer is I must be able to find them here! I've had a few recommendations before but couldn't find them anywhere (even amazon!) for purchase / loan.

OP posts:
lemonpoppyseed · 12/06/2012 02:07

No recommendations (just about to head to bed), but I'm in Canada and buy all of my British books from Book Depository. They do free shipping, and books arrive in a couple of days. I agree that the selection of British books in N America is pretty bad, but I usually find what I'm looking for at BD.

ICutMyFootOnOccamsRazor · 12/06/2012 02:10

A bit hard to recommend without knowing what you've read...

Have you read Brideshead Revisited?

Sloobreeus · 12/06/2012 02:24

The Remains of the Day (written by Kazuro Ishiguro who is Japanese), Jane Austen, Tony Parsons, Charles Dickens, Saturday by Ian McEwan, Middlemarch by George Eliot, Julian Barnes, Graham Swift, Alan Hollinghurst...should get you going!

Fishpond · 12/06/2012 02:31

Sorry ...

By classics I mean...

Almost entire repertoires of Austen, Dickens, and the Brontes, Middlemarch, Cold Comfort Farm, Heart of Darkness, Room with a View and Passage to India, some Graham Greene, the two big Hardy's, some Maugham, all of Orwell, a lot of Shakespeare, can't do Virginia Woolf, tried Rushdie and couldn't get into it (worth persevering?).

I can't abide Ian McEwan sorry Grin

OP posts:
Fishpond · 12/06/2012 02:32

Ooh and thanks lemon for the link!

OP posts:
notcitrus · 12/06/2012 02:34

As above, plus Gormenghast, Agatha Christie, PD James, Christopher Brookmyre (three very different murder story types!), Alice in Wonderland, The Wombles, Arthur Ransome, Winnie the Pooh with original illustrations. CS Lewis's Narnia books, for stuff Brits grew up on.

beginnersluck · 12/06/2012 03:17

Lady Audley's Secret by Elizabeth Braddock (I think)
Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel and others by Daphne Du Maurier

Horopu · 12/06/2012 03:29

P.G. Wodehouse

MarySA · 12/06/2012 09:50

Definitely Barbara Pym. Some are better than others. I like Excellent Women, the Sweet Dove Died, and A Glass of Blessings best.

highlandcoo · 12/06/2012 10:13

Second Daphne du Maurier; she is really entertaining.

Also Arnold Bennett, especially The Old Wives' Tale. A Victorian/Edwardian novelist who deserves to be much more widely known.

You could look at Persephone Books too. They focus on rediscovering women's writing from last century .. some of them are brilliant. Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day are v popular.

mayaswell · 12/06/2012 10:36

What about modern British fiction? It's interesting that most of these are about times gone by, although their themes are often universal.
Brick Lane by Monica Ali? Anyone else got anything about how we live now?

mayaswell · 12/06/2012 10:39

Sorry, just re-read Sloobrius's post. Ignore me, please. My suggestion was going to be Elizabeth Taylor, In A Summer Season would be my rec.

highlandcoo · 12/06/2012 10:46

If you're looking for something more contemporary, The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher is an excellent account of life in Sheffield around the time of the miners' strike. Lots of family/relationship stuff too.

What a Carve Up and The Rotter's Club by Jonathan Coe also v good on the same period.

I like The Observations by Jane Harris, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters and The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber .. big novels set in Victorian times but written recently, so more explicit about the seamier sides of life in that era.

NicknameTaken · 12/06/2012 11:34

EF Benson, the Lucia books

I agree with MarySA - Barbara Pym is brilliant. My favourites are Excellent Women, Some Tame Gazelle, Crampton Hodnet and Less than Angels

E.M. Delafield, esp. Diary of a Provincial Lady

Nancy Mitford, Love in a Cold Climate

And some classic children's books: TH White, The Once and Future King. Kenneth Graham, The Wind in the Willows. Mary Norton, the Borrowers series.

BobbiFleckman · 12/06/2012 11:43

all of the Nancy Mitford novels, and a good helping of Waugh - Decline & Fall, Vile Bodies, Brideshead.
Graham Greene - Brighton Rock
modern but covers the 20th century from start to finish is the wonderful "Any Human Heart" by William Boyd.
I am a HUGE fan of earlier novels - if you haven't eg read "Vanity Fair" by Thackerey you are in for a huge treat and I urge you to rush off and read it now (am actually quite jealous of anyone who gets to read that for the first time!). I also like some Fanny Burney novels - Evelina / Camilla and also Samuel Richardson's "Pamela" = all 18th century

Fishpond · 12/06/2012 11:46

Ooh thanks for all these they look great. I have read the more popular children's books (wind in the willows, narnia, etc) and I didnt necessarily mean recommendations had to be pre-21st century - just what qualifies to you as a great British novel. Smile

OP posts:
Roseformeplease · 12/06/2012 11:51

Mapp and Lucia

Francagoestohollywood · 12/06/2012 11:55

Barbara Pym
P.G. Wodehouse
Jonathan Coe

FairPhyllis · 12/06/2012 12:31

We don't really have the mental category of "Great British Novel" in the way that people consciously have in the US of "Great American Novel." But anyway:

Early:
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding - comedy, one of the earliest novels in English but very readable.
Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne

Victorian:
Trollope (Anthony, not Joanna!). The Warden?

Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
Cranford, North and South - Mrs Gaskell
Wilkie Collins - the Moonstone, the Woman in White
Dracula - Bram Stoker

Prewar:
I second Arnold Bennett - try Anna of the Five Towns.
Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. Very English.
Agatha Christie is very under rated imo.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (some might argue this is a children's book but I read it as an adult)
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome
DH Lawrence?

Post war:
The Quiet American, The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
Possession, AS Byatt
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Le Carre
The Lucia novels by EF Benson
Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark

Children's books:
Grimble by Clement Freud
The Railway Children, Five Children and It, both Edith Nesbit
Rudyard Kipling - Jungle Book
The Secret Garden, A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliffe
Watership Down - Richard Adams

FairPhyllis · 12/06/2012 12:32

Oops. EF Benson is prewar.

slug · 12/06/2012 12:54

definitely try PG Wodehouse for British humour

It may be worth trying some Will Self. He's not to everybody's taste, but Great Apes I thought was fantastic and The Book of Dave is accessible.

AS Byatt is worth exploring. I recently read and loved The Children's Room.

For a modern British classic, Hillary Mantell's Wolf Hall is hard to beat

BobbiFleckman · 12/06/2012 14:31

ah! Tom Sharpe - Porterhouse Blue. Screamingly funny, as is Wodehouse

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 12/06/2012 17:20

Evelyn Waugh - especially 'Vile Bodies' and 'A Handful Of Dust' for good fun. 'Brideshead' for getting annoyed re Catholicism - but a great read.

Yes to 'Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day' - a gorgeous book about a 'certain type' of English woman. 'The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie' is fun too.

Yes to 'The Rotters Club' too (can't remember how many rotters there are, so am leaving out the apostrophe!).

CJ Sansom's Shardlake novels for a great portrayal of England under Henry 8th, rotting leg and all. :)

Children's books - Ballet Shoes, Charlotte Sometimes, Tom's Midnight Garden, Goodnight Mr Tom, Daddy Long Legs, The Secret Garden - all v evocative of certain periods and all very readable.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 12/06/2012 17:21

Actually, 'Daddy Long Legs' is American, I think - but it's brilliant, so read it anyway!

JeanBodel · 12/06/2012 17:25

Georgette Heyer, innit.

Swipe left for the next trending thread