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.

@orlandob my pleasure - I love William Boyd too (my favourite is Any Human Heart, which only occasionally has London in it!).

Also wishing you better times 💐

I really enjoyed those Joan Wyndham books too.

Similarly, it's a memoir, not a novel, but Frances Faviell's Chelsea Concerto is very evocative of London in wartime….she lived in Chelsea when it was still a proper, everyday neighbourhood rather than the haunt of the super-rich.

I wonder if they ever crossed paths.

I do wonder!

Thank you 🙏

Oh and I loved this - non fiction, Square Haunting by Francesca Wade. It's a fascinating biography/social history of several remarkable women who all lived at one time or another around this square in Bloomsbury.

amzn.eu/d/c3i6EwZ

Just finished Caledonian Road. Very enjoyable.

Square Haunting is a great book, agreed.

If we're going down the non-fiction road then the sky's the limit, but in that case I have to mention the writer Gillian Tindall. She's a historian who knows London intimately and writes about it superbly. The House by the Thames is absolutely gripping - all about the little house on Bankside (just down the road from Tate Modern) where Christopher Wren is said to have lived when St Paul’s was being rebuilt after the Great Fire. Spoiler - he probably didn’t, but she reveals the whole history of that area which obviously includes a lot about Shakespeare and his theatre troupe.

@Terpsichore that author sounds great, I am going to look her up!

I absolutely love her books Sheila, she lived in Kentish Town for many years and wrote a fascinating book about that area too (The Fields Beneath) - her book Célestine, about the tiny French village where her family had a holiday home, is one of my top reads ever. If you like books where authors delve into archives and winkle out all sorts of arcane details, she’s your woman!

@Terpsichore I've just put all those on my wishlist!

Loving all of these, thank you.

Another recommendation for Mick Herron's Slow Horses series. His fictional Slough House is a few doors away from Barbican Station, so the the Apple TV adaptation is spot on.

Mick is actually from Newcastle and lives in Oxford, but he used to get off the tube at Barbican every day on his way to work.

Free Love by Tessa Hadley
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

London isn't the only setting in either, but features prominently in both. Plus, they're great reads.

Loved these books!