BRITISH BOOKS

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"Best Books for Anglophiles." What a perpetually changing list this could be!  The titles selected below are perennial favorites with Anglophiles.  This "old favorites" list, however, could rightfully include many additional titles--and then there will be future titles to consider.  As you can see, a list of best books for Anglophiles is quite organic!

What criteria did I use for choosing the books on my list?  Well, I did not choose books simply because they are best-sellers.  Lots of books written by British authors may be best-sellers but they don't necessarily provide readers insights into the various regional differences in Britain or into the British mind-set, and for my list, such insights are paramount.  I chose books that offer either a vividly described British setting, vivid enough to make readers feel transported to Britain, or books that delve deeply into the British mind-set, helping Anglophiles understand the psychology of the British people.  Of course, some books I choose do both!    

I strongly encourage my dear Anglophile readers to email me titles of books (new or old) that they feel should be added to this list.  But please, make sure your suggestions meet my criteria!  (Submission form is below.)

Now, drum roll, please. . . .


Zella's Pick of Best Books for Anglophiles - Fiction category
(in alphabetical order)

  •  A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  • A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
  • A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • About A Boy by Nick Hornby
  • Accelerando by Charles Stross
  • All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan
  • Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh
  • Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
  • Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
  • Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
  • Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
  • David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  • Emma by Jane Austen
  • Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
  • Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
  • Good Omens by Terry Prachett
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • Howards End by E.M. Forster
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
  •  Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
  • Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
  • Little Dorrit  by Charles Dickens
  • London Fields by Martin Amis
  • Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
  • Maisie Dobbs (entire series) by Jacqueline Winspear
  • Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
  • Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
  • Maurice by E.M. Forster
  • Middlemarch by George Eliot
  • Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
  • Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn
  • Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
  • Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
  • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  • Persuasion by Jane Austen
  • Possession by A.S. Byatt
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
  • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  • The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
  • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
  • To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield
  • To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
  • The Adventures of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  • The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
  • The Collector by John Fowles
  • The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  • The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
  • The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
  • The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
  • The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
  • The Go-Between by L.P.Hartley
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows
  • The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
  • The Horses’s Mouth by Joyce Cary
  • The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  • The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
  • The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe
  • Mapp and Lucia by E.F. Benson
  • The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
  • The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
  • The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
  • The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
  • The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
  • The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
  • The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
  • The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
  • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (a Flavia de Luce Mystery) by Alan Bradley
  • The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones
  • The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag (a Flavia de Luce Mystery) by Alan Bradley
  • Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
  • ​Where Angels Fear to Tread  by E.M. Forster
  • White Teeth by Zadie Smith
  • Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Books Recommended by Anglophiles United Readers:
  • A Fine Romance - Falling in Love with the English Countryside by Susan Branch
  • Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage by Jennifer Richardson
  • Anglophiles Top Guide to British Words and Beyond by Jen Reckard
  • Chilled Vengeance by Rupert de Cesaris
  • Guernsey Evacuees by Gillian Mawson
  • Hidden Masters & the Unspeakable Evil by Jack Barrow
  • In the Devil's Own Words by Elizabeth Wixley
  • Notes from a Small Island (nonfiction) by Bill Bryson
  • Pretty Nostalgic (British magazine)
  • Television: Rare & Well Done by Terence Towles Canote
  • The Book of British Firsts by Paul Godby
  • The City of London Freeman's Guide by Paul Jagger
  • The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milene
  • The Smith of Wooton Major by JRR Tolkien
  • The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
  • The Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
  • The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
  • The Witness: A Novel by Naomi Kryske
  • Their Whispered Voices - Poems from Herne and Hertingfordbury by Lorna Murrell


    Recommend a book for your fellow Anglophiles!

    Whoa!  Wait a second!  Does the book you're suggesting meet this criteria?
    1. The story has a strong sense of place, so strong that the reader feels transported to Britain.
    2. The story offers deep insights into the British mind-set.  If the story fails to capture the spirit of Britain and could have taken place anywhere in the world, then the book is not right for our purposes here.

Zella's Comment: One of my all-time-favorite finds in London is Persephone Books at 59 Lamb's Conduit Street, near the Russell Square tube station in Bloomsbury.  (Everything about this small, quaint shop is amazing--including the name of the street it's on.  "Lamb's Conduit."  How cute is that?!  Leave it to the Brit's to come up with such a name, right?  But I digress.) 

Persephone Books caters to a very interesting niche market.  It sells only reprints, which they themselves print.  The books they choose to reprint must be "neglected books," from earlier days, that were written by women, for women, or about women.  The stories tend to be genteel.  The owners scour dusty libraries and old bookstores to find these forgotten gems.  And most charming of all?  Persephone cares about the BEAUTY of their books.  All have identical exterior covers (gray with cream-colored labels), but the books' interior endpapers are the shop's trademark.  Each book has its own uniquely designed endpapers (with wallpaper-like graphics), chosen to compliment the book's date and mood.  And each comes with a bookmark of matching design.  I'm simply gaga about all this.  I leave the shop feeling like I've just purchased matching fabric for an ottoman and overstuffed reading chair!  If you're in London, be sure to visit Persephone.  And if you're not in London, well, you're still in luck, because the shop sells online. 
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY
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