Novels that evoke British places very well ...please recommend

[revolvenotevolve]

Id love to read some novels set around Britain and that really evoke the place so it inspires a visit ! Any recommendations ?

"Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, for the Scottish highlands"

Um, I like them, but...she'd not been to Scotland when she wrote it and I think you can tell, even apart from things like places not actually being where she writes that they are.

The Ann Cleeves stuff about Shetland is incredible given that she'd not actually been there when she wrote the first one! She describes the English department at the high school through the eyes of Inspector Perez. Now I've not been in those rooms in 25 years but it all came flooding back to me - fab!

Brick Lane by Monica Ali for gritty modern London and any Thomas Hardy for rural Dorset - the language still sums up the landscape and scenery today.

If you fancy a walking trip - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Any Daphne Du Maurier

South Riding by Winifred Holtby for the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Watership Down by Richard Adams. I live nearby, and the descriptive writing is spot on.

"'Waterland' by Graham Swift really evokes the Fens but I'm not sure it would inspire a visit."

I was going to say "What Hetty Did" by JL Carr for the fenlands, but again I'm not sure it would inspire you to visit - even the heroine gets out as fast as possible

OK then, Lucy Boston's The River At Green Knowe for a nicer version of the Fens. (It's a kids' book though. Maybe all the adult ones are grim.)

Cider with Rosie

Laura Blundy by Julie Myerson (London around the 19th century)
Black is the Colour by Helen Howe (Nottinghamshire during the miners strike and since)
Under a Thin Moon by Livi Michael (bleak but thought-provoking, set on a Manchester council estate)

Cider with Rosie for rural England pre WW2.

Lark Rise to candleford for earlier rural life.

Tideline - P. Hancock -> Thames/ Greenwich

PetiteRaleuse - driven past Jamaica inn in Cornwall last week. Kicking myself I didn't stop now.

Look out for a really top read coming out in paperback in September: The Shadow Year by Hannah Richell set in The Peak District - hugely evocative of location www.tripfiction.com/Book/3632

Aberystwyth Mon Amour is great if you like a bit of detective noir.

French Lieutenant's Woman for Lyme Regis.

If you extend to children's fiction, the Swallows and Amazons books are good for Lake District, Norfolk broads and Scottish island. Inspire your kids to get to Wild Cat island, climb a mountain etc!

Patrick Gale novels for Cornwall: Notes from an Exhibition, A Perfectly Good Man. For Winchester: his The Whole Day Through. And they are excellent novels.

On Chesil Beach

Something might happen by Julie myerson is set in Suffolk. I've never been and loved the descriptions of it.

Also a Stuart maconie book where he goes round England. Really enjoyed that too.

Brighton Rock.

London Fields.

Brick Lane.

Wish I could think of one for my south Essex hometown, but it's oddly short on literary inspiration

On The Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin, for the Herefordshire/Welsh border. Brilliant book too.

Dreams of Leaving - Rupert ??? describes the South Downs villages inland of Brighton very well. I didn' t read it knowing this, but recognised Hassocks, Keymer a.d Hurstpierpoint - where my grandparents lived , and where I spent a great deal.of my childhood.

Anything by Dickens
Peter May's the Lewis Trilogy
Any Bronte book except for Villette
Colin Dexter - Inspector Morse (set in and around Oxford)
Ian Rankin - Edinburgh

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner for the landscape around Macclesfield in Cheshire: I grew up there and he just gets the Pennine landscape and the unearthliness of Alderley Edge and Shutlinsloe.

Actually, I must go and re-read it right this minute.

The Dark is Rising sequence for Cornwall, wherever it is that Will Stanton lives and the Welsh mountains.

I loves my retro children's literature, me, so yyy to Swallows and Amazons for the lakes, too.