Great Britain: More Recommended Reading and Viewing
Nonfiction
For a better understanding of the British, check out A History of Britain, Volumes I, II & III (by Schama; a companion series is also available on DVD). A Traveller's History of England (Daniell), A Traveller's History of Scotland (Fisher), and A History of Wales (Davies) provide good, succinct summaries of British history. Other possibilities include the humorous Notes from a Small Island (Bryson), The Matter of Wales (Morris), and Susan Allen Toth's My Love Affair with England; England As You Like It; and England For All Seasons.
If you'll be visiting Scotland, consider reading Crowded with Genius (Buchan) or How the Scots Invented the Modern World (Herman), which explains the influence the Scottish Enlightenment had on the rest of Europe. The Guynd is a memoir of a woman who married into a historic Highlands estate.
Fiction
Much British fiction is already familiar to North American readers, but here are a few you might have missed.
Classics such as Mapp & Lucia (Benson), The Warden (Trollope), and Brideshead Revisited (Waugh) are always a good place to start. Add to this group anything by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Thomas Hardy, Agatha Christie, and P.G. Wodehouse. Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson, is a fantastic adventure story set in Scotland.
Historical fiction is a fun and easy way to learn about your destination. The Pillars of the Earth (Follett), Sarum (Rutherfurd), and Stonehenge (Cornwell) are all set in and around Salisbury. The heroines of Philippa Gregory's novels (The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool, among others) witness intrigue at the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, while Restoration (Tremain) celebrates the excesses of King Charles II. Sharon Kay Penman brings 13th-century Wales to life in Here Be Dragons. And in the romantic, swashbuckling Outlander (Gabaldon), the heroine time travels between the Scotland of 1945 and 1743.
Mystery novels have a long tradition in Britain. A Morbid Taste for Bones (Peters) features a Benedictine monk-detective in 12th-century Shropshire. Agatha Christie's Miss Marple was introduced in 1930 in The Murder at the Vicarage. And Ian Rankin's troubled Inspector Rebus first gets his man in Knots and Crosses, set in modern-day Edinburgh. For a modern mystery, try any of the books in the Inspector Lynley series by Elizabeth George.
Films
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)looks back on a schoolteacher's life in Victorian England. Mrs. Miniver (1942), a sentimental WWII picture, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, as did How Green Was My Valley (1941), set in a 19th-century Welsh mining village.
If Scotland is on your itinerary, consider viewing the Hitchcock mystery The 39 Steps (1935); I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), a charming love story filmed on the Island of Mull; the musical Brigadoon (1954); the horror film The Wicker Man (1973); and/or the funny, fish-out-of-water flick Local Hero (1983).
The Wicker Man (1973), a horror flick,shows a different side of a small Scottish town. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) brings the famous comedy troupe's irreverence to Arthurian legend. Chariots of Fire (1981) tells the tale of British runners at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
A Room with a View (1985), an adaptation of the E. M. Forster novel, sets half of the film in rural England. The all-star Gosford Park (2001) is part comedy, part murder mystery, and part critique of British class stratification in the 1930s. Hope and Glory (1987) is a semi-autobiographical story of a boy growing up during WWII's Blitz.
In 1995, Scottish history had a mini-renaissance, with Braveheart, winner of the Best Picture Oscar,and Rob Roy, which some historians consider the more accurate of the two films. The UK television series Monarch of the Glen (2000) features stunning Highland scenery and the eccentric family of a modern-day Laird.
For lots more information, check out our best-selling Rick Steves' Great Britain guidebook — or join us on one of our free-spirited tours in Europe.