“London itself perpetually attracts, stimulates, gives me a play & a story & a poem, without any trouble, save that of moving my legs through the streets… To walk alone in London is the greatest rest.” ~ Virginia Woolf, Diary, March 28, 1930.
So you say your tickets to the London Olympics got lost the mail? Yeh, mine too, and I couldn’t be more disappointed. London is one of my cities – one of those distant places we return to and develop a kinship with. Having visited London countless times in my mind, it has also been my pleasure to stroll her streets, seeking and finding all manner of treasure. I’ve searched in vain for 84, Charing Cross Road or traces of The Old Curiosity Shop amidst the beguiling bookstalls, lost rapt hours in the British Museum and walked up and down the Thames under the changing weather, gazing at a mackeral sky or sighing over a Waterloo Sunset. G.K Chesterton – who created his own surreal versions of London once wrote that “London is a riddle. Paris is an explanation.” I’ve never felt Down and Out in either, but of the two London’s just the riddle for me.
- Capital, by John Lanchester. The various residents of posh Pepys Road each receive a postcard reading, simply, “We Want What You Have.” A smart, stylish contemplation of getting and spending.
- London, by Edward Rutherfurd. If you like your history fictional, this epic novel covers an entire millennia. British Michener, if you will.
- The Sexual History of London, by Catharine Arnold. A different take on 2,000 years of carnality and illicit intimacies from the Roman brothels to Soho smut shops.
- The London Scene, by Virginia Woolf. Six essays bring to vivid life London in the 1930s. Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway also brims with London life.
- The Lodger Shakespeare, by Charles Nicholl. Explores a curious historical artifact – a recovered deposition of Shakespeare from a 1612 court case – to offer a rare window into the real life and art of the great playwright.
- The Buddha of Suburbia, by Hanif Kureishi. Karim Amir samples the various kinds of Nirvana on offer in South London, circa 1970.
- A Week in December, by Sebastian Faulks. Fast forward to 2007: this thick slice of London life follows a diverse cast of characters who worry about terrorists while being fleeced by bankers.
- Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. In this richly imagined urban fantasy, there is not one London, but two, each wonderful in its way.
- Portobello, by Ruth Rendell. A random act of kindness becomes a target for evil in this keen work of psychological suspense, filled w/ London broodiness.
You’ll find many more titles in Eternal London: in fact and fiction, a reading list in our library catalog. We’ve only just scratched the surface of this many storied city. What are your favorite London books?
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