I’d like some book suggestions for before and during the trip to England, Scotland and Ireland.
I’m planning a two-week driving tour of England, Scotland and Ireland. I’d like some book suggestions for before and during the trip. I already have Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson. I was an English major so have read loads of Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontes and Austen. Help?
Perhaps some of these? 🙂
https://media.bookbub.com/blog/2017/03/14/historical-fiction-set-in-ireland/
Thank you so much!
The books by Frank Delaney are great.
Also, Dubliners by Joyce maybe? Not so difficult to read like some other Joyce’s works
Round Ireland With A Fridge by Tony Hawks – available on Amazon uk
I just looked this up and it’s just what I was looking for! Thank you!
Hope you have a great time – I recently returned to England to be closer to family after ten years in Spain. Prior to that I went to university for 4 years in Stirling, Scotland and loved it there. Enjoy your trip and make some lovely memories with your husband and son.
Bernard Cornwell- The Last Kingdom
If you take me with you, I’ll read aloud. Whenever you want me to.
This will be my second trip to England and Scotland (30 years have passed) but the first for my husband and son. My father died two months ago and this was the only trip we ever took together (it was fantastic in every way). I’m taking a part of my inheritance from him to go again. The Ireland part is for my mother and England is for me, the Shakespeare/Dickens/anglophile 🙂
Wow!!! Good for you Mary!!!!!
For a brilliant taste of British history, Philippa Gregory. I would recommend The Other Boleyn Girl but her other books are excellent. Fictional but based on fact.
I love Phillipa Gregory! And that is one of my favorites.
And if in Dublin, don’t miss the Old Library and the Book of Kells at Trinity College, it’s breathtaking!
You must know me! 🙂
As a fellow bookworm, recommending a library always seems like a good idea 😀
If you have a few hours in Scotland and a car, the Library at Innerpeffrey near St. Andrews is wonderful. Look it up — friends took me there and it’s a real little treasure! (and full of treasures.)
Eleanor Oliphant is set in Scotland.
Outlander!!
The Book Shop On the Corner is a good read set in the Highlands. Books and Scotland! Can’t go wrong!
Good for you! Have a great time and take lots of pictures. I am truly jealous, but very happy for you.
Round Ireland with a fridge by Tony Hawks
Adventures on the High Teas by Stuart Maconie. HOw England Made the English by Harry Mount. 500 Mile Walkies by Mark Wallington. Three Men In A Boat by Jerome K. JErome.
McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy
On the road by jack Kerouac
Edna O’Brien novels.
Sarum
Don’t read, just watch the scenery, you’ll never get to see it again!
Why do you think that? If one plans and budgets, revisiting isn’t out the question for many.
I travel a lot, and I have come across this way of thinking — that I am somehow not enjoying or appreciating my travels enough if I spend some time during a trip reading. I could try to explain how I feel it adds to my experience, but really it isn’t anyone else’s business. Read, or don’t read, on your own vacation. The OP asked for suggestions of books to read so clearly that is what she is choosing to do.
She asked for books before and during the trip — I always read about the country I’m about to visit, especially on the plane. It really sets the scene ahead of time.
Outlander books are great. Set in Scottish highlands
If you’re going to Oxford, Dorothy Sayers’s Gaudy Night. For London, Christopher Fowler’s Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries–it’s almost as though London is a character in them, especially the earlier volumes. Edward Rutherfurd’s (no, Autocorrect, it’s not Rutherford) Sarum or London.
M.C. Beaton. Fun detective stories.
Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins, The Matthew Shardlake historical mystery series by C.J. Sansom, and books by Hilary Mantel. Also any books by Kate Atkinson.
Try Silas Marner by George Elliott.
If you like mysteries Magpie Murder by Anthony Horowitz was really fun…
I recently read The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen Flynn. A delightful fantasy, time travel, historical fiction novel that would be perfect for a visit to the British Isles.
All the Flavia deLuce mysteries and The Guernsey Literary and Potato ? Peel Pie Society.
Sooooo jealous, but am doing the same thing myself in September, plus southern Spain. Have an amazing trip!
We just got back from UK. We flew into London, drove to a small seaport town – Maryport, stayed in an airbnb place, and drove from there to Edinburgh, Scotland, then to Stirling, Scotland. Was a great experience. SOOO much to see and do, can’t possibly do it all. William Wordsworth home is near to Maryport. We had never been to UK, (or overseas for that matter) and enjoyed learning to drive there and all around.
44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith sets the tone for Edinburgh.