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 ?

Ooh, yy to Dark is Rising. Must read again :)

The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner

Was going to say Cider With Rosie but someone beat me to it.

Three Men in a Boat is great for locations along the river Thames. Also Wind in the Willows on part of the same stretch

I thought AS Byatt's Possession really captures bits of North Yorkshire, and Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum for York. And her Jackson Brodie books are good for Edinburgh (think the first one was Cambridge but I don't know it so couldn't judge)

Brideshead Revisited for Oxford.

David almond.

I you like modern fantasy/sci-fi/I don't know what to call it, I think that Tom Holt and Robert Rankin do some very English stuff, almost to the stage of making me homesick when I was living abroad.

It's not always accurately defining an area (although there is the Brentford Trilogy), but just the overall feeling they give is very everyday english town existence.

Phil Rickamn really makes the place the star, really evocative.

Alison Lurie's 'Foreign Affairs' for modern London (from the POV of an American).

As well as 39 Steps for Scotland, I'd recommend John MacNab, also by John Buchan, which is really evocative of the Scottish Highlands in the interwar years (and even now), and a great romp.

Dorothy L Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey series for Oxford (Gaudy Night), Fens (9 Tailors).

Ian Rankin's Rebus books for Edinburgh, also Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street books for Edinburgh.

Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine Series (like Famous Five but much better written) for Shropshire.

North and South and Mary Barton for northern industrial towns in the industrial revolution.

The Call the Midwife books (on which the TV series was based) are a very interesting look at the east end of London in the 1950s.

Swing hammer swing by Jeff Torrington for an unrivalled view of 60's Glasgow.
He calls the High Street the vestigal spine of medeval Glasgow. Brilliant.

Porterhouse Blue- Tom Sharpe for cambridge

There is a book called ' The Curry club' (poss) set in the mill road

Oh I know- Alexander- a life lived backwards describes the drinking culture and a very grim aspect of poverty in the city.

Parts of neil Stephenson's trilogy are about Issac Newton and Cambridge,but I didn't get on with it so I'm not sure that I could recommend it.

I suggest that you visit cambridge and read the names of the WW2 airmen written on the ceiling of The Eagle instead.

The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens for Shropshire or any idyllic perfect 'profound England' countryside really.

The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard for Sussex.

Rivals by Jilly Cooper for quite a vivid Cotswolds feel IMO.

Philip Hensher, The Northern Clemency (for Sheffield)

The Will Stanton place in the Dark is Rising was Buckinghamshire.

Oh, and The Darling Buds of May - Kent.

Secrets by Freya North is set in Saltburn by the Sea near Whitby. The setting plays a big party in the story and when I visited a couple of years later it all felt so familiar.

A Place of Execution by Val McDermid, set in a wonderfully evoked Peak District. Cracking read.

Anne Cleeves 'Shetland' series. The fifth book has recently been published and the one of them has already been made into a television series. Highly recommended. :) Shetland is part of the UK although it isn't present on the Mumsnet homepage map! We're often forgotten about since we're so far north.

oh, here's the link: anncleeves.com/shetland/

Blacklands, Dark Side, and Finders Keepers by Belinda Bauer for Exmoor. Really excellent thrillers, especially Blacklands.

Another vote for Ian Rankin for Edinburgh - and if you pick up Black and Blue, good on Glasgow and Aberdeen as well.

Previous poster onto something with crime fiction being particularly good for this: Denise Mina for Glasgow and Stuart McBride for a very dark look at Aberdeen!

For me, the best book if you want to understand central belt Scotland is Our Fathers by Andrew O'Hagan.