Going to London in March. Any reading suggestions? Thanks.

[callous taoboy]

[krispos42]

1. What's your preference?

Sci-fi? Drama? Comedy? Alt history? Military fiction?

[callous taoboy]

2. Something very British, comedy or history. TIA

[krispos42]

3. Jasper Fford

and that's not a smartphone typo... Fford. Try "The Big Over Easy", then if you like it read the next book "The Fourth Bear".

Great writing and intricate murder mystery plots. They are also ridiculous and hilarious and funny as hell.

[Staph]

8. Sorry, it is a typo!

It's Jasper FForde! I would also suggest his Thursday Next books, The Eyre Affair (2001), Lost in a Good Book (2002), The Well of Lost Plots (2003), Something Rotten (2004), First Among Sequels (2007), and One of our Thursdays is Missing (2011). They take place in an alternate British universe, where the Crimean War is still going on in the 1980s, and where fans of books are analogous to the sports fans of our universe. Imagine going to a live performance of Richard III, where audience members volunteer to play all the parts and treat the performance like a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[krispos42]

9. Oh, that's righte...

I've read all the Thursday Next books, too. And then I went and bought a WillSpeak machine of my very own...

[Staph]

10. I've been searching for a WillSpeak machine for years!

Amazon, eBay or Etsy?

[fadedrose]

4. English Writrs and Books set in England

Two series, Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth:

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/B_Authors/Beaton_M-C.html

Bryant & May, Peculiar Crimes Unit:

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/F_Authors/Fowler_Christopher.html

Or go here and find mostly all the mysteries in England:

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/LocationCats/Europe/England.html

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/LocationCats/Europe/London.html



Have a gret time . . .

[fadedrose]

5. To save some money, many books can be purchased online

at Amazon.com or Alibris.com

Library's books are too easy to lose, and used books are the way to go.

Many series started years ago, and they're still available online - pocketbooks being the cheapest and easiest to carry.

[callous taoboy]

6. Thanks! I will be attending a lecture inside studio 2 at Abbey Road, on my birthday!

This is my first trip overseas, and I am really excited. Thanks for the reading suggestions.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Specifically London-based contemporary mysteries include

Prime Suspect (all seven series available on DVD and on Netflix streaming)

Books:

Mysteries by Deborah Crombie feature a man-woman team of Scotland Yard inspectors (later married)

Mysteries by P.D. James, many set in London

Can't think of any others offhand.

[SheilaT]

11. Everything by Norah Lofts.

Although nothing of hers is contemporary. She wrote a large number of, I guess I could call them interlinked, novels set in a fictionalized part of southwestern (I think) England. The novels range in time from the very end of the Roman occupation up to the 1950's. They weren't written in time-ordered sequence, but someone who is a minor character in one will be the main character of another.

Interestingly enough, her very first novel was about the Donner Party.