Ten Great Books Set in England

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!

1. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
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.

2. Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie
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.

3. Loveless by Alice Oseman
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.

4. The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood
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.

5. A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
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.

6. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
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.

7. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
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!)

8. The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
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.

9. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
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.

10. The Switch by Beth O'Leary
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

Ten Fictional Schools I Wouldn't Want to Attend

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week is a school-themed freebie. I opted to list out ten schools from books I've read that I'm glad I never had to attend!

1. Bailey School (from the Bailey School Kids series)
Not that it was always bad to have a school staffed by magical creatures, but the kids at the school ended up spending so much mental energy trying to figure out whether each person was actually a vampire, a leprechaun, a ghost, and so on and rarely getting concrete proof, which has to feel like a years-long gaslighting experience.

2. Croydon Academy of the Arts and Sciences (from The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer)
The fact that this school seemed terrible may be a result of the entire book being kind of terrible, but it seemed like the teachers were either negligent, rude, or overly harsh, and the social strata among the students was intense.

3. Crunchem Hall Primary School (from Matilda)
Any school run by a headmistress like Miss Trunchbull is one I'd like to avoid!

4. Hailsham (from Never Let Me Go)
It's hard to explain this one without spoilers, but let's just say that the students are part of an experiment that has major implications for their existence, which is a lot of pressure to have hanging over your art projects.

5. Hogwarts (from the Harry Potter series)
I know, the whole idea of learning magic spells and how to fly sounds awesome, but in reality, the chance of dying while attending this school is much too high...

6. Innovations Academy (from Girls with Sharp Sticks)
I'd prefer to go to school to learn actual subjects, rather than how to be obedient and beautiful.

7. The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened (from The Mysterious Benedict Society)
Besides the school being a cover-up for evil doings (which the main characters are sent there to uncover), it's like the worst parts of regular school — long, repetitive lectures and constant quizzes that require memorizing the content — and none of the fun parts.

8. Lowood School (from Jane Eyre)
The students at this school for female orphans are overworked, underfed, and discouraged from having a will of their own.

9. St. Jerome's Indian Residential School (from Indian Horse)
Based on the actual residential schools that Native children were forced to attend, the students at this school are not only stripped of their culture in an attempt at forced assimilation, they're also subjected to slavery-like conditions and physical and sexual abuse.

10. Wayside School (from the Wayside School series)
Besides having teachers that can turn you into an apple or read your mind or trap you on an invisible floor doing busy work forever, you may have to walk as many as twenty-nine flights of stairs to get to class, the lunchroom food is inedible, and there are never enough usable balls available at recess.

Which fictional schools would you not want to attend?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Sun Is Also a Star, Womanist Midrash, and Strange the Dreamer
Five years ago I was reading: Infinite Jest and Taken at the Flood
Ten years ago I was reading: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Ten Books Set in a Place I'd Love to Visit

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topic is books set in a place we'd love to visit. I decided this is different than bookish settings I'd love to visit, where a specific book makes me want to visit a place; in this case, I listed ten places I want to visit and paired them with books I've read set there. Some of these are places I've been before and want to return to, and some are places I have never been to but would like to.

1. Australia: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
I have never been to Australia, but I'm interested to visit someday!

2. Canada: The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
I've been to a couple of spots in British Columbia briefly and on the other side of the Niagara Falls, but otherwise I've never made a proper visit to Canada. I have some friends in BC I'd love to visit, and it would also be great to try out my French skills in Quebec!

3. France: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
I spent a week in Paris in college, but I'd like to see more of France, plus people in Paris tended to speak English to me when I tried to speak French. I have a friend living in Paris now, though, so I'd be happy to go back there as well!

4. Ireland: One Hundred Names by Cecilia Ahern
I spent a week touring Ireland with my family in 2010, but I had mono and spent a lot of time sleeping on the tour bus. I enjoyed the trip and would love to go back with the ability to walk around more!

5. Italy: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
I was supposed to go on a trip to Sicily (where my grandmother was born) with my family in 2020, which was rescheduled for obvious reasons, and when it finally happened this summer I wasn't able to take the time off work to go. I'd still like to visit someday.

6. Japan: After Dark by Haruki Murakami
My dad lived in Tokyo for work for a year and a half and we went to visit him for a week. I really liked a lot about the city and would love to go back.

7. Massachusetts: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
I've been a lot of places in the United States, but never anywhere in New England. Boston feels like a place I should have been by now, and I have a friend in Cambridge I could visit.

8. New Zealand: A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh
I had a wonderful time visiting New Zealand four years ago for the wedding of some friends who live there. I definitely want to go back and see them again, especially now that they have a child!

9. Vermont: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Another place in New England I haven't been where one of my friends now lives!

10. Wales: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
I had Wales on my list because I wanted to see the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff, but I didn't realize until now that it was only there from 2012 to 2017. It's not clear if the museum will be rehoused somewhere else at this point, but if it is, that's where I'd like to visit!

What places would you like to visit?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Thursday Murder Club, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Homecoming of Samuel Lake
Five years ago I was reading: Infinite Jest, Faithful Place, and Crime and Punishment
Ten years ago I was reading: The Grapes of Wrath

Ten Bookish Worlds I’d Never Want to Live In

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week we're talking about bookish worlds you'd want to live in or never want to live in. Since I previously wrote about bookish settings I'd like to visit, I decided to go in the opposite direction for this one! Here are worlds envisioned differently from our own where I personally wouldn't want to live.

1. Any dystopia (1984, Brave New World, The Giver, Never Let Me Go...)
This seems pretty obvious... the definition of a dystopia is a place or society where things are not good, for one reason or another. There are plenty of books that fall into this category, and I wouldn't like to live in any of them.

2. Any post-apocalyptic world (Station Eleven, The Stand, The Road...)
There's some overlap with dystopian fiction here, but you can have a dystopia that's not proceeded by a catastrophe and a catastrophe after which people manage to rebuild something stable and not totalitarian. Even so, I hope I never have to live through a global catastrophe that wipes out most of the world population (assuming I lived through it, which I probably wouldn't)!

3. Most other futuristic worlds (Leviathan Wakes, Stranger in a Strange Land...)
Even if you look forward and don't foresee total destruction or the dominance of a totalitarian government, I don't necessarily like the predictions. Living in space and being dependent on the galactic economy for affordable air to breathe, or only encountering grass if you're rich enough to grow some inside your apartment? No thanks!

4. Chewandshallow (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs)
A world where food comes down from the sky depending on the weather is something that's fun in theory and would be terrible to actually exist in.

5. Dune (Dune)
This is a sand world that's so dry that you have to recapture and filter your own bodily fluids to stay hydrated. Blergh.

6. The world of His Dark Materials
I admittedly remember very little of this series (one reason I hope to reread them this year), but I remember it seeming very dark and like you were always in danger of getting kidnapped or being the victim of a politically or religiously motivated murder.

7. The Hundred-Acre Wood (Winnie-the-Pooh)
I didn't realize until listening to this series with my son that most of these beloved characters are kind of terrible. Rabbit is mean to everyone, Eeyore is passive-aggressive, Winnie-the-Pooh only visits people as an excuse to eat their food, Tigger lies constantly, and Christopher Robin gets bored easily and acts like he doesn't care about anything. There'd be way too much everyday drama for my taste.

8. Inkworld (Inkheart)
Not only is Inkworld basically like going back in time to when everything was controlled by the feudal system and there was no plumbing, but there's also the matter of people constantly popping in from the "real world" or disappearing forever. It's a fascinating idea to read about, but I wouldn't want to live there.

9. Narnia during the Age of Winter (Chronicles of Narnia)
I understand that Narnia is not always the way it is in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (which is why I also hope to read the whole series this year) but that's always how I picture it when people talk about going to Narnia. I don't enjoy being cold. I don't want to go to a place where it's always winter!

10. Oz (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or Wicked)
Whichever version of Oz you're talking about, it sounds way too terrifying and unpredictable for me to ever want to live there.

Which bookish worlds would you never want to live in?

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Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing and Dune
Five years ago I was reading: Gone Girl
Ten years ago I was reading: The Drama of the Gifted Child

Nine Bookish Settings I'd Love to Visit

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

I have a hard time with topics like this because 1) I don't like to travel that much and 2) there are many, many book settings I would never want to visit. I don't understand when I see books like The Hunger Games on lists of fictional worlds that people want to visit, or books set in historical periods when people had fewer rights and died from lots of things that are preventable today. (I know I'm too much of a realist sometimes.) Anyway, I did come up with nine books that either presented a desirable fictional world or actually made me interested in visiting some part of our world — here you go.

1. All Creatures Great and Small: Yorkshire Dales
James Herriot makes spring and summer in the Dales (at least in the 1940s) sound like the most idyllic environment one could be in — wide open blue skies, rolling hills, calm meadows.

2. Anne of Green Gables: Prince Edward Island
I've only made two very quick stops across the Canadian border, and I think this would be a fun place to visit, knowing that there are Anne-related tourist stops around the island.

3. Birdsong: WWI battlefields
I've mentioned before that my great-grandfather served in World War I, and in this book one of the main characters visits the site of a battle her grandfather fought in. It made me want to see the parts of France mentioned in my great-grandfather's memoir of the war.

4. Eat, Pray, Love: Italy
I mentioned this in my list of books that make me hungry, but this book made me want to seek out the local restaurants in Italy that don't even have a name where the food was so good it made Elizabeth Gilbert cry.

5. The Fault in Our Stars: Amsterdam
Technically I got interested in Amsterdam from John Green's videos while he was researching for The Fault in Our Stars, but either way, it sounds like a cool city.

6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: Guernsey
I don't think I knew this island existed before I read this book, but it sounds like a lovely place to visit.

7. The Harry Potter series: Hogwarts
I mean... obviously.

8. The Phantom Tollbooth: Kingdom of Wisdom
I don't think I'd want to get stuck in this bizarre world of words and numbers permanently, but visit it? Totally.

9. Totto-Chan: Tokyo
I have actually visited Tokyo, but it was before I read this book. I don't know if the location of her school is marked today, but given this book's popularity in Japan I would think it's possible.

Which books would you voluntarily inhabit?

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