Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Harm Done: A New Inspector Wexford Mystery (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Harm Done: A New Inspector Wexford Mystery (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

by Ruth Rendell

The search for the body commenced. Then the victim walked into town. Behind the picture-postcard façade of Kingsmarkham lies a community rife with violence, betrayal, and a taste for vengeance. When sixteen-year-old Lizzie Cromwell reappears no one knows where she has been, including Lizzie herself. Inspector Wexford thinks she was with a boyfriend. But the disappearance of a three-year-old girl casts a more... (more)

London: The Novel

by Edward Rutherford

“A TOUR DE FORCE . . . LONDON TRACKS THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CAPITAL FROM THE DAYS OF THE CELTS UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME. . . . BREATHTAKING.” —The Orlando Sentinel Now in a handsome new trade paperback edition, here is Edward Rutherfurd’s classic novel of London, a glorious pageant spanning two thousand years. He brings this vibrant city’s long and noble history alive through the ever-shifting fortunes, fates,... (more)

I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

Now a major motion picture from the Academy Award-winning producer of Shakespeare in Love I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly... (more)

Old Filth

by Jane Gardam

"Jane Gardam's beautiful, vivid and defiantly funny novel is a must." --The Times "Gardam's superb new novel is surely her masterpiece . . . one of the most moving fictions I have read in years . . . This is the rare novel that drives its readers forward while persistently waylaying and detaining by the sheer beauty and inventiveness of it style." --The Guardian "The Whitbread winner scores again with a... (more)

The Radiant Way

by Margaret Drabble

Twenty five years ago Liz, Alix and Esther were leading lights at Cambridge. Now they meet as old friends at a glittering New Year's Eve party to welcome in the 1980s. It is the dawn of the Thatcher era, and Britain is on the brink of great social and political upheaval. How will these three ambitious and confident middle-aged women survive the personal and professional challenges, and the changing values of the... (more)

Nice Work (King Penguin)

by David Lodge

Centered in Rummidge, a sprawling industrial town in the English midlands, Nice Work confirms Lodge's rare capacity to be thought-provoking, moving, and very funny. "A singularly brilliant and invigorating performance."--Chicago Tribune.

The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels

The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate: Two Novels

by Nancy Mitford

Few aristocratic English families of the twentieth century enjoyed the glamorous notoriety of the infamous Mitford sisters. Nancy Mitford's most famous novels, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate , satirize British aristocracy in the twenties and thirties through the amorous adventures of the Radletts, an exuberantly unconventional family closely modelled on Mitford's own. The Radletts of Alconleigh... (more)

No Fond Return of Love

by Barbara Pym

Pym introduces Dulcie Mainwaring, one of those seemingly selfless women who always help others and never look out for themselves, especially in matters of love. When Dulcie's young niece becomes the object of absentminded Professor Aylwin Forbes's amorous designs, Dulcie whisks away her friend Viola -- who has her own designs on the professor -- to the seaside in Taviscombe to discover the hidden secrets of the... (more)

Quiet As a Nun/Large Print (Curley Large Print Books)

Quiet As a Nun/Large Print (Curley Large Print Books)

by Antonia Fraser

When a murder takes place in a secluded tower at Blessed Eleanor's Convent in Sussex and the victim is an old school friend, Britain's most popular TV reporter Jemima Shore finds herself in the middle of a disturbing puzzle. The dead woman, a nun, was to inherit one of the largest fortunes in Britain. Jemima walks into the eye of a worldly storm of fear-and the more she learns, the clearer it becomes ... (more)

Adam and Eve and Pinch Me

by Ruth Rendell

Minty’s boyfriend, Jock, was killed in the disastrous train wreck at Paddington, shortly after he borrowed all her savings. Now he has come back to haunt her. Zillah lost her estranged husband, Jerry, in that same accident. She is not convinced he is actually dead, but for reasons of her own decides not to pursue the matter. Fiona’s fiancé, Jeff, has simply disappeared–quite inexplicably since she was supporting... (more)

Snobs

by Julian Fellowes

SNOBS is the story of Edith Lavery, who earns a living answering the telephone in a Chelsea-based estate agents. She is the attractive only child of a comfortably-off accountant. When she attends Royal Ascot as a guest of friends, she meets bachelor Charles Broughton, who as Earl Broughton and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, is a gossip-column favourite. He proposes, she accepts - and here is the crux of the... (more)

London Holiday

by Richard Peck

The perfect beach read and armchair travelogue--a wry, engaging, stylish novel of three women's escape into carefree London. London Holiday opens in Mrs. Smith-Porter's cozy, prestigious London bed-and-breakfast, where the hotelier curiously awaits her three new American guests... Best friends since long-ago childhood days, Lesley, a St. Louis society matron and do-gooder, Julia, a successful but lonely... (more)

Watching the English : The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

Watching the English : The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour

by Kate Fox

Mr. Phillips

by John Lanchester

Mr. Phillips wakes on a summer's Monday morning in his modest, nearly mortgage-free house, ready to face another ordinary working day. Except this day is far from ordinary, for on the previous Friday, Mr. Phillips was summarily sacked. Unable to deal with this disaster-unable even to tell his own wife-Mr. Phillips rises at his usual hour and prepares himself for the job he no longer has. As he wanders the streets... (more)

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

by Eva Rice

Eva Rice, daughter of the famed lyricist Tim Rice, has written a captivating and wonderfully stylized novel about a group of friends in postwar London’s glamorous and daring young society. With mannered prose dripping in the charm of 1950s London, TheLost Art of Keeping Secrets centers around Penelope, the wide-eyed daughter of a legendary beauty, Talitha, who is unable to move beyond the loss of... (more)

Be Near Me

by Andrew O'Hagan

A lways trust a stranger," said David’s mother when he returned from Rome. "It’s the people you know who let you down." Half a life later, David is Father Anderton, a Catholic priest with a small parish in Scotland. He befriends Mark and Lisa, rebellious local teenagers who live in a world he barely understands. Their company stirs memories of earlier happiness—his days at a Catholic school in Yorkshire, the... (more)

Mistress of Alderley, The

by Robert Barnard BSC

Well-known actress Caroline Fawley has given up her successful stage and television career for love and life at Alderley, an elegant country home "bought" for her by her married "friend," international business titan Marius Fleetwood. Despite the inquisitive villagers, Caroline is happy and the world is good...until a mysterious young man backpacking through the countryside arrives at the door. He says his name is... (more)

The Skeleton in the Grass (Soundings S.)

The Skeleton in the Grass (Soundings S.)

by Robert Barnard

A small-town vicar's daughter, Sara Causseley could not be more delighted by her new job as governess to the aristocratic Hallam clan. The children are precociously adorable, the gardens at Hallam House are a dream, and the conversation -- at glittering dinners, at boisterous family picnics -- is as stimulating as she could possibly have wished. But ominous political clouds are gathering over Europe, and as... (more)

Think of England: A Novel

by Alice Elliott Dark

Two cataclysmic events occur on February 9, 1964. The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show and later that night, nine-year-old Jane MacLeod's life changes forever. It has been said that children are good observers but poor interpreters. Jane's interpretation of the events of that evening shapes her life in ways she doesn't recognize. Think of England follows Jane from an intense love affair in the ex-pat... (more)

Tea in the City: London (Tea in the City)

Tea in the City: London (Tea in the City)

by Jane Pettigrew, Bruce Richardson

Jane Pettigrew and Bruce Richardson have combined their knowledge of the London tea scene to bring readers a thorough guide to all things tea in the city that made the beverage famous. This travel book tells you about the well-known and little-known tea rooms, tea shops and historical sites in the London area. Neighborhood maps, 150 color photographs and detailed directions make sure you find the tea experiences... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: get into great britain

by Ruth Rendell

by Edward Rutherford

by Dodie Smith

by Jane Gardam

by Margaret Drabble

by David Lodge

by Nancy Mitford

by Barbara Pym

by Antonia Fraser

by Ruth Rendell

by Julian Fellowes

by Richard Peck

by Kate Fox

by John Lanchester

by Eva Rice

by Andrew O'Hagan

by Robert Barnard BSC

by Robert Barnard

by Alice Elliott Dark

by Jane Pettigrew, Bruce Richardson