BOOK RECS
Okay, so lots of people wanted this and so, I am compiling a list of my favourite books (both fiction and non-fiction), books that I recommend you read as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, I’ll be pinning this post to the top of my blog (once I work out how to do that lmao) so it will be accessible for old and new followers. I’m going to order this list thematically, I think, just to keep everything tidy and orderly. Of course, a lot of this list will consist of historical fiction and historical non-fiction because that’s what I read primarily and thus, that’s where my bias is, but I promise to try and spice it up just a little bit.
Favourite fiction books of all time:
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock // Imogen Hermes Gowar
Sense and Sensibility // Jane Austen
Slammerkin // Emma Donoghue
Remarkable Creatures // Tracy Chevalier
Life Mask // Emma Donoghue
His Dark Materials // Philip Pullman (this includes the follow-up series The Book of Dust)
Emma // Jane Austen
The Miniaturist // Jessie Burton
Girl, Woman, Other // Bernadine Evaristo
Jane Eyre // Charlotte Brontë
Persuasion // Jane Austen
Girl with a Pearl Earring // Tracy Chevalier
The Silent Companions // Laura Purcell
Tess of the d’Urbervilles // Thomas Hardy
Northanger Abbey // Jane Austen
The Chronicles of Narnia // C.S. Lewis
Pride and Prejudice // Jane Austen
Goodnight, Mr Tom // Michelle Magorian
The French Lieutenant’s Woman // John Fowles
The Butcher’s Hook // Janet Ellis
Mansfield Park // Jane Austen
The All Souls Trilogy // Deborah Harkness
The Railway Children // Edith Nesbit
Favourite non-fiction books of all time
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman // Robert Massie
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King // Antonia Fraser
Madame de Pompadour // Nancy Mitford
The First Iron Lady: A Life of Caroline of Ansbach // Matthew Dennison
Black and British: A Forgotten History // David Olusoga
Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court // Lucy Worsley
Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Katherine Howard, the Fifth Wife of Henry VIII // Gareth Russell
King Charles II // Antonia Fraser
Casanova’s Women // Judith Summers
Marie Antoinette: The Journey // Antonia Fraser
Mrs. Jordan’s Profession: The Story of a Great Actress and a Future King // Claire Tomalin
Jane Austen at Home // Lucy Worsley
Mudlarking: Lost and Found on the River Thames // Lara Maiklem
The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth // Anna Keay
The Marlboroughs: John and Sarah Churchill // Christopher Hibbert
Nell Gwynn: A Biography // Charles Beauclerk
Jurassic Mary: Mary Anning and the Primeval Monsters // Patricia Pierce
Georgian London: Into the Streets // Lucy Inglis
The Prince Who Would Be King: The Life and Death of Henry Stuart // Sarah Fraser
Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match // Wendy Moore
Dead Famous: An Unexpected History of Celebrity from the Stone Age to the Silver Screen // Greg Jenner
Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum // Kathryn Hughes
Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey // Nicola Tallis
Favourite books about the history of sex and/or sex work
The Origins of Sex: A History of First Sexual Revolution // Faramerz Dabhoiwala
Erotic Exchanges: The World of Elite Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century Paris // Nina Kushner
Peg Plunkett: Memoirs of a Whore // Julie Peakman
Courtesans // Katie Hickman
The Other Victorians: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in mid-Nineteenth Century England
Madams, Bawds, and Brothel Keepers // Fergus Linnane
The Secret History of Georgian London: How the Wages of Sin Shaped the Capital // Dan Cruickshank
A Curious History of Sex // Kate Lister
Sex and Punishment: 4000 Years of Judging Desire // Eric Berkowitz
Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray // Barbara White
Rent Boys: A History from Ancient Times to Present // Michael Hone
Celeste // Roland Perry
Sex and the Gender Revolution // Randolph Trumbach
The Pleasure’s All Mine: A History of Perverse Sex // Julie Peakman
LGBT+ fiction I love*
The Confessions of the Fox // Jordy Rosenberg
As Meat Loves Salt // Maria Mccann
Bone China // Laura Purcell
Brideshead Revisited // Evelyn Waugh
The Confessions of Frannie Langton // Sara Collins
The Intoxicating Mr Lavelle // Neil Blackmore
Orlando // Virginia Woolf
Tipping the Velvet // Sarah Waters
She Rises // Kate Worsley
The Mercies // Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Oranges are Not the Only Fruit // Jeanette Winterson
Maurice // E.M Forster
Frankisstein: A Love Story // Jeanette Winterson
If I Was Your Girl // Meredith Russo
The Well of Loneliness // Radclyffe Hall
* fyi, Life Mask and Girl, Woman, Other are also LGBT+ fiction
Classics I haven’t already mentioned (including children’s classics)
Far From the Madding Crowd // Thomas Hardy
I Capture the Castle // Dodie Smith
Vanity Fair // William Makepeace Thackeray
Wuthering Heights // Emily Brontë
The Blazing World // Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
Murder on the Orient Express // Agatha Christie
Great Expectations // Charles Dickens
North and South // Elizabeth Gaskell
Evelina // Frances Burney
Death on the Nile // Agatha Christie
The Monk // Matthew Lewis
Frankenstein // Mary Shelley
Vilette // Charlotte Brontë
The Mayor of Casterbridge // Thomas Hardy
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall // Anne Brontë
Vile Bodies // Evelyn Waugh
Beloved // Toni Morrison
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd // Agatha Christie
The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling // Henry Fielding
A Room With a View // E.M. Forster
Silas Marner // George Eliot
Jude the Obscure // Thomas Hardy
My Man Jeeves // P.G. Wodehouse
Lady Audley’s Secret // Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Middlemarch // George Eliot
Little Women // Louisa May Alcott
Children of the New Forest // Frederick Marryat
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings // Maya Angelou
Rebecca // Daphne du Maurier
Alice in Wonderland // Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows // Kenneth Grahame
Anna Karenina // Leo Tolstoy
Howard’s End // E.M. Forster
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 // Sue Townsend
Even more fiction recommendations
The Darling Strumpet // Gillian Bagwell
The Wolf Hall trilogy // Hilary Mantel
The Illumination of Ursula Flight // Anne-Marie Crowhurst
Queenie // Candace Carty-Williams
Forever Amber // Kathleen Winsor
The Corset // Laura Purcell
Love in Colour // Bolu Babalola
Artemisia // Alexandra Lapierre
Blackberry and Wild Rose // Sonia Velton
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories // Angela Carter
The Languedoc trilogy // Kate Mosse
Longbourn // Jo Baker
A Skinful of Shadows // Frances Hardinge
The Black Moth // Georgette Heyer
The Far Pavilions // M.M Kaye
The Essex Serpent // Sarah Perry
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo // Taylor Jenkins Reid
Cavalier Queen // Fiona Mountain
The Winter Palace // Eva Stachniak
Friday’s Child // Georgette Heyer
Falling Angels // Tracy Chevalier
Little // Edward Carey
Chocolat // Joanne Harris
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street // Natasha Pulley
My Sister, the Serial Killer // Oyinkan Braithwaite
The Convenient Marriage // Georgette Heyer
Katie Mulholland // Catherine Cookson
Restoration // Rose Tremain
Meat Market // Juno Dawson
Lady on the Coin // Margaret Campbell Bowes
In the Company of the Courtesan // Sarah Dunant
The Crimson Petal and the White // Michel Faber
A Place of Greater Safety // Hilary Mantel
The Little Shop of Found Things // Paula Brackston
The Improbability of Love // Hannah Rothschild
The Murder Most Unladylike series // Robin Stevens
Dark Angels // Karleen Koen
The Words in My Hand // Guinevere Glasfurd
Time’s Convert // Deborah Harkness
The Collector // John Fowles
Vivaldi’s Virgins // Barbara Quick
The Foundling // Stacey Halls
The Phantom Tree // Nicola Cornick
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle // Stuart Turton
Golden Hill // Francis Spufford
Assorted non-fiction not yet mentioned
The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World // Deborah Cadbury
The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History to the Italian Renaissance // Catherine Fletcher
All the King's Women: Love, Sex, and Politics in the life of Charles II // Derek Jackson
Mozart’s Women // Jane Glover
Scandalous Liaisons: Charles II and His Court // R.E. Pritchard
Matilda: Queen, Empress, Warrior // Catherine Hanley
Black Tudors // Miranda Kaufman
To Catch a King: Charles II's Great Escape // Charles Spencer
1666: Plague, War and Hellfire // Rebecca Rideal
Henrietta Maria: Charles I's Indomitable Queen // Alison Plowden
Catherine of Braganza: Charles II's Restoration Queen // Sarah-Beth Watkins
Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses // Helen Rappaport
Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 // Stella Tillyard
The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of the Jamaican Slave who Became Samuel Johnson’s Heir // Michael Bundock
Black London: Life Before Emancipation // Gretchen Gerzina
In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793-1815
The King’s Mistress: Scandal, Intrigue and the True Story of the Woman who Stole the Heart of George I // Claudia Gold
Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson // Paula Byrne
The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England // Amanda Vickery
Terms and Conditions: Life in Girls’ Boarding School, 1939-1979 // Ysenda Maxtone Graham
Fanny Burney: A Biography // Claire Harman
Aphra Behn: A Secret Life // Janet Todd
The Imperial Harem: Women and the Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire // Leslie Peirce
The Fall of the House of Byron // Emily Brand
The Favourite: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough // Ophelia Field
Night-Walking: A Nocturnal History of London // Matthew Beaumont, Will Self
Jane Austen: A Life // Claire Tomalin
Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton // Flora Fraser
Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the 18th Century // John Brewer
Henrietta Howard: King’s Mistress, Queen’s Servant // Tracy Borman
City of Beasts: How Animals Shaped Georgian London // Tom Almeroth-Williams
Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion // Anne Somerset
Charlotte Brontë: A Life // Claire Harman
Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe // Anthony Summers
Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day // Peter Ackroyd
Elizabeth I and Her Circle // Susan Doran
African Europeans: An Untold History // Olivette Otele
Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron, and Other Tangled Lives // Daisy Hay
How to Create the Perfect Wife // Wendy Moore
The Sphinx: The Life of Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough // Hugo Vickers
The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn // Eric Ives
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy // Barbara Ehrenreich
A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie // Kathryn Harkup
Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II // Linda Porter
Female Husbands: A Trans History // Jen Manion
Ladies in Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day // Anne Somerset
Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country // Edward Parnell
A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles // Ned Palmer
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine // Lindsey Fitzharris
Medieval Woman: Village Life in the Middle Ages // Ann Baer
The Husband Hunters: Social Climbing in London and New York // Anne de Courcy
The Voices of Nîmes: Women, Sex, and Marriage in Reformation Languedoc // Suzannah Lipscomb
The Daughters of the Winter Queen // Nancy Goldstone
Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency // Bea Koch
Bess of Hardwick // Mary S. Lovell
The Royal Art of Poison // Eleanor Herman
The Strangest Family: The Private Lives of George III, Queen Charlotte, and the Hanoverians // Janice Hadlow
Palaces of Pleasure: From Music Halls to the Seaside to Football; How the Victorians Invented Mass Entertainment // Lee Jackson
Favourite books about current social/political issues (?? for lack of a better term)
Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power // Lola Olufemi
Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Worker Rights // Molly Smith, Juno Mac
Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race // Reni Eddo-Lodge
Trans Britain: Our Journey from the Shadows // Christine Burns
Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism // Alison Phipps
Trans Like Me: A Journey For All Of Us // C.N Lester
Brit(Ish): On Race, Identity, and Belonging // Afua Hirsch
The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence, and Cultural Restitution // Dan Hicks
Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living // Jes M. Baker
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot // Mikki Kendall
Denial: Holocaust History on Trial // Deborah Lipstadt
Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape // Jessica Valenti, Jaclyn Friedman
Don’t Touch My Hair // Emma Dabiri
Sister Outsider // Audre Lorde
Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen // Amrou Al-Kadhi
Trans Power // Juno Roche
Breathe: A Letter to My Sons // Imani Perry
The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment // Amelia Gentleman
Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You // Sofie Hagen
Diaries, memoirs & letters
The Diary of a Young Girl // Anne Frank
Renia’s Diary: A Young Girl’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust // Renia Spiegel
Writing Home // Alan Bennett
The Diary of Samuel Pepys // Samuel Pepys
Histoire de Ma Vie // Giacomo Casanova
Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger // Nigel Slater
London Journal, 1762-1763 // James Boswell
The Diary of a Bookseller // Shaun Blythell
Jane Austen’s Letters // edited by Deidre la Faye
H is for Hawk // Helen Mcdonald
The Salt Path // Raynor Winn
The Glitter and the Gold // Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough
Journals and Letters // Fanny Burney
Educated // Tara Westover
Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading // Lucy Mangan
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? // Jeanette Winterson
A Dutiful Boy // Mohsin Zaidi
Secrets and Lies: The Trials of Christine Keeler // Christine Keeler
800 Years of Women’s Letters // edited by Olga Kenyon
Istanbul // Orhan Pamuk
Henry and June // Anaïs Nin
Historical romance (this is a short list because I’m still fairly new to this genre)
The Bridgerton series // Julia Quinn
One Good Earl Deserves a Lover // Sarah Mclean
Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake // Sarah Mclean
The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics // Olivia Waite
That Could Be Enough // Alyssa Cole
Unveiled // Courtney Milan
The Craft of Love // EE Ottoman
The Maiden Lane series // Elizabeth Hoyt
An Extraordinary Union // Alyssa Cole
Slightly Dangerous // Mary Balogh
Dangerous Alliance: An Austentacious Romance // Jennieke Cohen
A Fashionable Indulgence // KJ Charles
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2020
The Unseen, by Roy Jacobsen
Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid
Dark Skies, by Tiffany Francis
Exciting Times, by Naoise Dolan
Motherwell, by Deborah Orr
Lady in Waiting, by Anne Glenconner
Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson
Adults, by Emma Jane Unsworth
My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Uncanny Valley, by Anna Wiener
Silver Sparrow, by Tayari Jones
Pretending, by Holly Bourne
On Chapel Sands, by Laura Cumming
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, by Cho Nam-ju
Grown Ups, by Marian Keyes
Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
Going Dark, by Julia Ebner
Theft, by Luke Brown
Pachinko, by Min Jin Lee
Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld
The Mist, by Ragnar Jónasson
Difficult Women, by Helen Lewis
Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez
Nightingale, by Marina Kemp
Writers & Lovers, by Lily King
American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld
The Man of My Dreams, by Curtis Sittenfeld
Funny Weather, by Olivia Laing
Rodham, by Curtis Sittenfeld
Brit(ish), by Afua Hirsch
White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
Taking Up Space, by Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi
This Happy, by Niamh Campbell
The Guest List, by Lucy Foley
The New Girl, by Harriet Walker
The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett
Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah
Don’t Touch My Hair, by Emma Dabiri
Nothing Can Hurt You, by Nicola Maye Goldberg
How Do We Know We’re Doing it Right, by Pandora Sykes
The Hungover Games, by Sophie Heawood
Black and British, by David Olusoga
How to Argue With a Racist, by Adam Rutherford
The Most Fun We Ever Had, by Claire Lombardo
Natives, by Akala
Love in Colour, by Bolu Babalola
Women Don’t Owe You Pretty, by Florence Given
The Weekend, by Charlotte Wood
The Consequences of Love, by Gavanndra Hodge
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
Dominicana, by Angie Cruz
Ghosts, by Dolly Alderton
We Need New Stories, by Nesrine Malik
The Ratline, by Philippe Sands
Luster, by Raven Leilani
Help Yourself, by Curtis Sittenfeld
Untamed, by Glennon Doyle
Whites, by Otegha Uwagba
More Than a Woman, by Caitlin Moran
The Silence, by Susan Allott
The Boys Club, by Erica Katz
One by One, by Ruth Ware
The Diana Chronicles, by Tina Brown
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