Books set in London

[argyllherewecome]

Needing a bit of a London fix, any suggestions for books set in London? Doesn't have to be a major part, just small references. Bonus points if it's a mews setting or somewhere quite nice.

I recently read the book of beginnings which is set mostly in London. Was a nice, easy read. I enjoyed it.

The Cormoran Strike series?

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Jane Fallon books.
Apple Tree Yard

A Thousand Paper Birds by Tor Udall. It's set around Kew Gardens.

The Paying Guests- very strong sense of place and time.
Siân Busby Commonplace killing ditto.
Lots of Julian Barnes- Metroland, north London suburbs in the 60’s
The Only Story, South London.

Freida klien series by Nicci French

Brick Lane - Monica Ali
Hangover Square - Patrick Hamilton (published in the 1930s, beautifully atmospheric, set in Earl's Court area in smoky pubs and grotty bedsits)
Loads of Dickens eg, David Copperfield. It's a fat novel, but not a hard read and it has some of his most memorable characters.
84 Charing Cross Road. An epistolary account of Helene Hanff's relationship with a London bookseller.
Mary Poppins - PL Travers, it's a children's book but it's sharper and darker than the film and Mary isn't as nice.
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
Most of CJ Sansom's Shardlake series of Tudor murder mysteries are set in London
Nightwatch - Sarah Waters
A Far Cry From Kensington and The Ballad of Peckham Rye- Muriel Spark

Rivers of London series

Rivers of London series

You beat me to it!

Capital by John Lanchester
The Slow Horses series by Mick Heron

Kate Atkinson Palace of Gaiety set in the first Soho nightclubs.

Several Nick Hornby books are set in North London, I love his writing.

Not fiction but London Made Us by robert elms is the definitive london book

Caledonian Road - a great read.

www.amazon.co.uk/Caledonian-Road-Andrew-OHagan/dp/0571381359

Christopher Fowler’s Bryant And May series of detective novels. Packed with London history.

Sherlock Holmes?
Anne Perry Inspector Pitt/ William Monk series for Victorian London
Creed by James Herbert if you fancy some horror!
Paddington😂

You need some Elizabeth Bowen - her London novels are always set somewhere’nice’.

Capital - John Lanchester
Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan
Saturday - Ian McKewan
Free Love - Tessa Hadley
Happiness - Aminatta Forna
On Hampstead Heath - Marika Cobbold
Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffeneger
Towards the End of the Morning - Michael Frayn
A Landing on the Sun - Michael Frayn
Old Baggage - Lissa Evans

Second the suggestion of Dickens. Bleak House, Little Dorrit and Our Mutual Friend are all very evocative of 19th century London.

Also, Quincunx by Charles Palliser. A 20th century novel in the style of a 19th century one. Much of it set in London.

Pepys' Diary

Oh yes, and A Dance to the Music of Time - series of 12 novels by Anthony Powell. Lots of it set in London. They were written between about 1950 and 1976 or so and cover the lifetime of a man born in around 1905 and all the people he meets up to the mid 1970s.

A lot of Zadie Smith novels

Oh yes, another must-read is Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor.

A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks