I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.
This week we're sharing books that all have the same setting in common. Looking over the books I've enjoyed in the past decade, they have quite a wide variety of settings! I finally settled on England as an area of the world where a multitude of books I love have been set, and I stuck with only one book per author to provide more of a variety. Here's my list!
Herriot (the pen name of James Alfred Wight) shares a fictionalized account of his experiences as a veterinarian in the dales of Yorkshire. Between the memorable stories, colorful characters, and beautiful descriptions, this is literary comfort food as its best.
I had to pick from a long list of Christie titles, though my favorite of hers (Death on the Nile) doesn't take place in England, so I went with another favorite instead, one that's delightfully unpredictable and twisty.
I love almost all of Oseman's books, which are set in several different parts of England, but this one has a special place in my heart for its stellar aroace representation.
I think you need to experience this middle grade novel (and its sequels) on audio to get the full effect of the narrator's accent, which lends a Mary Poppins air to this story of an English governess caring for three children raised by wolves.
This is a recent favorite, the story of three children evacuated from wartime London into the English countryside, trying to find a forever family. It's also excellent on audio.
This gothic classic is set at a fictional manor in Cornwall, in the southwest corner of England. It's one of my favorite classic novels, which I've loved since middle school.
Through the book's first-person narrator reflecting back on his career as an English butler, you get to see how things have changed over the decades. This is one of my favorite examples of an unreliable narrator, as Stevens is lying to himself about certain aspects of his past as much as he's unintentionally lying to the reader. (Another one that's excellent on audio!)
The mystery at the heart of this engaging story takes the reader back and forth in time and between London and the Sussex countryside as a woman seeks answers in her mother's past about a crime she witnessed as a child.
It's worth saving this one for when you have the patience to savor the descriptions of Cornwall that provide the backdrop for this beautiful story of three generations of women.
Leena moves out to her grandmother's house in Yorkshire for a two-month sabbatical while her grandmother, Eileen, tired of the limited romantic prospects in her small village, takes Leena's spot in her London flat. It's silly and sweet and just predictable enough to be a heartwarming read.
What great books have you read set in England?
Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: Swallows and Amazons, The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, The Bean Trees, and Dragons Never Die
Five years ago I was reading: Born a Crime
Ten years ago I was reading: Roots and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
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