Your best recent UK books please

[useitorlose]

I'm in a book club where 90% of the members are Brits but we live overseas. I find most of the recommendations on goodreads are published in the US. If I was in the UK, I'd be in Waterstones browsing the bestsellers but unfortunately that's not an option, we mostly have to listen to the audio version or buy Kindle books. We'd like to read more books that are set in the UK as it's still 'home' so would welcome any recommendations. We are a bunch of middle-aged female expats, in the main, but age range low 30s - low 60s. Thanks!

A few book club reads that I have enjoyed

A Year of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman
The Reading Lisa by Sara Nisha Adams
Any Human Heart by William Boyd*
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

*everyone liked this one

The Boyd and the Mitchell ones aren't solely based in the UK

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry or Bourneville are two of my most recent reads. Thoroughly enjoyed both!

Joanna Cannon's books are UK based. Enjoyed The Trouble with Goats and Sheep (Bristol) and Three Things About Elsie (Yorkshire but it's set mainly in an elderly care home). I haven't read A Tidy Ending, but I think it is set in English suburbia - the main character has left Wales.

Death of a Book Seller
Starve Acre
Boy Parts
The Things we do to Our Friends
Sweet Pea

An great author called Fran Hill, I’ve read
“Cuckoo in the nest” based on her own experience of being fostered in the 1970s.
Also;
“Miss what does incomprehensible mean?” based on her experiences of being a teacher.
Both are brilliant, serious subjects but lots of humour and wit.

"Inheritance" and "Moving" by Jenny Eclair. Both are gorgeously written books set in the UK. I second the poster who recommended Any Human Heart.

Jonathan Coe books

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O Farrell

The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor (I thought this was superb)

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell

All of these have a nostalgia thing going on.

How about some Evelyn Waugh? Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, The Sword of Honour Trilogy etc

Or Nancy Mitford The Pursuit of Love etc.

Or more nostalgia many of the books published by Persephone are set in the U.K.

Ah these aren't recent! Sorry!!

I have read all the following recently and rate them (as have others I know who have read them):

Trespasses - Louise Kennedy (Northern Ireland)
A Terrible Kindness - Jo Browning Wroe (England and Wales)
Three Hours - Rosamund Lupton (England)
Rizzio - Denise Mina (Scotland)

Three Hours - superb and provoked a lot of discussion for us.

Albert and Rex - Steve Higgs, cozy mystery series with each story focussing on a different place associated with a national food. Eg Yorkshire pudding, Cumberland sausage, Bedford clanger (easy reading but good fun)

Blinded by the Light - based on true story set in 80s

Maeve Binchey - lovely books set in Ireland

All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriott

Bournville - Jonathan Coe
Whalebone Theatre - Joanna Quinnn

Another vote for Trespasses by Louise Kennedy - current book club book
The Premonition Bureau by Sam Knight (nonfiction)
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

If you want living writers, the following are all first class:

Edward St Aubyn
Kazuo Ishiguro
Ian McEwan
Alan Holinghurst
Julian Barnes

Hilary Mantel and Martin Amis died recently, but I'll include them. Mantel was a superb writer.

As for literature set in the UK, where do you start? Chaucer, I guess!

The British writers I love (for what it's worth), and who set their works in this country, are:

Jane Austen
George Eliot
The Brontes
Dickens (David Copperfield is my favourite)
Thomas Hardy (try the short stories if you find the novels bleak)
D. H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers is a good place to start, and his short stories are often better than the novels)
Joseph Conrad (try The Secret Agent)
Aldous Huxley (Crome Yellow would be a good start)
Evelyn Waugh (especially The Sword of Honour trilogy)
George Orwell (strongly recommend Coming Up for Air – lovely descriptions of English countryside, very nostalgic, etc)
Anthony Powell: (Dance to the Music of Time)
Anthony Burgess (so underrated. Try the Enderby series)
Anita Brookner (also grossly underrated)
Edward St Aubyn (the Melrose series is superb)
Ian McEwan (I love Atonement)
Alan Hollinghurst

I also have a soft spot for P. G. Wodehouse and the Sherlock Holmes novels. And I'm obsessed with M. R. James atm.

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson (1920s London)
The opposite of Butterfly hunting by Evanna Lynch (1980s-90s Ireland, 2000s England)
The things we left unsaid by Emma kennedy (england 1960s.onwards)

All excellent reads published in last 3 years

How to Kill your Family by Bella Mackie- mostly set in the UK.

Agree re the Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

Hamnet by Maggie o'farrell

The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn is lovely.

Also Unruly by David Mitchell- (the comedian not the previous mentioned writer of Utopia Avenue, also v good)

non fiction, the history of the Kings and Queens of England up to QE1. V funny.

I've just finished reading 'The Proof of my Innocence', the latest book by Jonathan Coe. It's a very entertaining and clever 'state of the nation' / murder mystery hybrid novel, mostly based during Liz Truss's short reign of chaos - so very recent!

I have just finished Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers. This is the second of her books I've read and I have to say, so far, I'm a fan.

I think they'd be great for a book club.

Both Ireland but two books I've read and loved recently are The Bee Sting and Kala. Highly recommend both.