reading: all things brit-ish

I really like reading stories set in Great Britain. One of my all-time favorite authors is Agatha Christie. I've loved her every since my very first trip to England when I was eleven. My dad handed me a big bulky anthology of her mysteries, said, "I think you're going to like these," and oh, I did. I loved them. It was, as was often the case when he gave me books, a perfect synchronicity in experience and imagination. I was reading about a place while I discovered it for the first time, and vice versa.

I've loved reading about Great Britain ever since.

Perhaps because there is so much eating of little cakes. Or because everything feels so atmospheric.

Perhaps it is because, ever since the royal engagement was announced, my husband has seen a 100% increase in people who have told him he looks like Prince William (before the royal engagement, it was zero people, now it stands at about five). Is it true? You decide:

If you would like, you can also talk about how much I look like Kate, and the correct answer is EXACTLY LIKE HER. (Ha! I wish.)

So, here are a few of my all-time favorite reads set in Great Britain:

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

Possession by A.S. Byatt

The London Eye by Siobhan Dowd

I've read everything Agatha Christie and Kate Morton have ever written. And a lot of PD James, and Dickens, etc., and of course Austen, etc.

I think Britain is on my mind because my husband just came back from his yearly trip to Hogwarts (he spends time each summer researching in England with a colleague who works at Kings College, Cambridge). Last year he brought me a beautiful little book of poetry from a used bookshop and I've been looking through it again, loving the old pages and the worn cover.

What are some of your favorite British novels?