English
Where the writers were.
A celebration and guide to all the places that great writers have been.
What is your favourite book about London?
started by gotiges7 (17 July 2008)
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17 July 2008
I find it hard to go past Orwell - Down and out in Paris and London. Although I do like London Fields by Martin Amis.
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17 July 2008
Old St Pauls is pretty interesting.
I have a London Anthology and I can’t for the life of me think who the author is but he writes period novels set in London with characters from History.
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17 July 2008
Just googled Old St Pauls. I’ll have to check it out - looks good.
I wonder how many books have used London as a setting? Must be millions!
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21 July 2008
Our Mutual Friend by Big Charlie Dickens.
London Fields, of course.
Several books by Peter Ackroyd, but “Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem” or “Hawksmoor” are both excellent reads. London: the Biography is also an amazing work of scholarship.
From Hell by Alan Moore, which contains one of the eeriest tours around the old city I’ve ever absorbed. If you’ve only seen the film, try your hardest to drive it out of your mind and approach the book afresh. It is well worth the effort.
Saturday by Ian McEwan is not, I suppose, technically about London. Still a damn good book though.
I’m sure there are lots of others but I’m having a mental block. To be continued.
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21 July 2008
That was the author I was trying to remember..Peter Ackroyd..thanks.
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22 July 2008
Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, set in the seedy parts of Victorian London and in some of the rich housing areas. It shows a great contrast in the classes and how close thay lived together
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23 July 2008
Blake Morrison’s 'South of the River’ is a good read
