London Calling

The countdown begins for our trip to London! I have major homework to do. Piled next to my bed, I have all the latest travel guides as well as a collection of London-related fiction and nonfiction. Here is what I trip over when I get up to pee in the middle of the night:
London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd (800 pages of history)
London: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd (History of the greatest city through fictional characters)
Imagined London by Anna Quindlen (a tour of London's writers and their character's' haunts)
Night Watch by Sarah Waters (Well, all of Sarah Waters' books are amazing works set in London. Night Watch is set during the Blitz and it is sad and magnificent.)

Alison Weir - fiction or nonfiction, she will show you the London of Henry VIII. My favorites are The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Innocent Traitor (the story of Lady Jane Grey that the beefeaters tell) and The Lady Elizabeth.


Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (his name is synonymous with London)
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (a true murder mystery that took place in a great estate outside of London)

Maisie Dobbs by Jacquline Winspear (quaint and cozy mysteries from the time between World War I and II. Full of details of London's high and low society, clothes, vacations, politics and more)
Jack the Ripper: The Complete Casebook by Donald Rumbelow (we went on a nighttime Jack the Ripper tour with Rumbelow and he was very informative. You can find him in random DVD extras or TV specials on Jack the Ripper too. This book is an oldie but goodie).

I know I tend to lean towards historical fiction but it is London's history that makes it so fascinating. As Anna Quindlen wrote in Imagined London, "Behind every door in London there are stories, behind every one ghosts. The greatest writers in the history of the written word have given them substance, given them life."