20 Travel Books About London to Read Before You Go

Now more than ever, you can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling through London. From the sacred stones of Westminster Abbey to the top of the London Eye, the city is yours to discover! Inside Rick Steves London you'll find:

• Fully updated, comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring London
• Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites
• Top sights and hidden gems, from Trafalgar Square and the Tower of London to where to find the best tikka masala or fish and chips
• How to connect with local culture: Catch a show in Soho, take afternoon tea, or have a pint of English ale with Londoners in a pub
• Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight
• The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a Pimm's Cup
• Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and world-class museums like the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert
• Day trips to Windsor, Cambridge, and Stonehenge
• Detailed neighborhood maps and a fold-out city map for exploring on the go
• Covid-related travel info and resources for a smooth trip

Whether you want to tread the footsteps of kings and queens in the royal palaces, take a break from sightseeing in one of the city’s many parks, or sample a tantalizing array of street food from around the world, your DK Eyewitness travel guide makes sure you experience all that London has to offer.

Every corner of this cosmopolitan capital is brimming with personality. Dripping in pomp and tradition, Whitehalland Westminster are best known for their iconic sights and regal architecture. The rolling fields and peaceful woodlands of Hampstead Heath feel a world apart from the futuristic skyscrapers of the financial district of the City. And when the sun sets, Soho bursts into life – the perfect spot for an evening out.

Our updated guide brings London to life, transporting you there like no other travel guide does with expert-led insights, trusted travel advice, detailed breakdowns of all the must-see sights, photographs on practically every page, and our hand-drawn illustrations which place you inside the city's iconic buildings and neighbourhoods. 

One of the world's most captivating metropolises, London is a cultural colossus-renowned for its pulsating theater district, museums, monuments, and fabulous array of restaurants and bars. Your DK Eyewitness Top 10 travel guide ensures you'll find your way around London with absolute ease.

Our annually updated Top 10 travel guide breaks down the best of London into helpful lists of ten-from our own selected highlights to the best museums and art galleries, places to eat, parks and gardens, and riverfront sights.

Walking London is the essential companion for any urban explorer—visitor or native—committed to discovering the true heart of one of the world's greatest capital cities!

In 30 carefully planned walks ranging from 2 to 6 miles, distinguished historian Andrew Duncan reveals miles of London's endlessly surprising landscape. From wild heathland to formal gardens, cobbled mews to elegant squares and arcades, bustling markets to tranquil villages, Duncan reveals the pick of the famous sights, but also steers walkers off the tourist track and into the city's hidden corners, taking you through the most interesting and attractive parts of London.

The Complete Guide to Everything That's Quintessentially British:

Are you a fan of British TV but you get lost in translation?

Maybe you plan to visit the UK one day?

Or maybe you are just looking for the BEST Christmas gift for a fellow anglophile!

Well, you're in the right place... best-selling author Jeff Watson brings you the ULTIMATE guide to British Slang.

An all-encompassing hilarious dictionary of everything that's quintessentially British.

A deep-dive into the most up to date & current slang spoken by Brits today, brilliantly illustrated, and hilariously explained.

Go beyond London's famous landmarks and discover the hidden gems. From secluded mews and undiscovered cafes to flower markets and tree-lined streets, prettycitylondon champions the quiet, gentle moments that allow you to escape in a huge capital city like London.If you know where to look, you will find that traditional shopfronts, vintage transport, artisan bakeries, whimsical florists and timeless bookstores are but a hop, skip and a jump from the centre, and some right in the middle.Full of the unexplored and less-appreciated areas of London, this stunning guide also includes tips on how to plan and photograph your own prettycitylondon experience, whether on foot or dreaming from afar.

New York Times bestseller Bill Bryson's irreverent and hilarious journey through the beloved island nation he called home for two decades. From Downing Street to Loch Ness, this is a delightful look at the United Kingdom.

Before New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson wrote The Road to Little Dribbling, he took this delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation of Great Britain, which has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie’s Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.

Uncover national secrets and unearth local legends from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in The Big Book of the UK. Filled with over 500 facts on wildlife, food, sports, language and some very silly place names, readers will become experts on the UK in no time.

Trace the origins and lineages of the British royal family, from the fifth century to the present day.

Over the course of 1,500 years, the British monarchy has undergone numerous transformations—from early warrior kings ruling a fragmented land to today’s mostly ceremonial head of state, King Charles III. Timeline of the British Monarchy is a detailed work of visual reference from the founders of the Useful Charts website that traces the lineages of the kings and queens of Great Britain from the Anglo-Saxons of the fifth century to today’s House of Windsor.

A giant wall chart shows the lineages of each ruling family, and four additional foldout charts provide further details on the main royal houses. Packed with full-color photos and illustrations, as well as insightful commentary on the most famous monarchs, this interactive book is a wonderful resource for anyone with an interest in the history of Great Britain.

A meticulously researched, beautifully written, and richly photographed cookbook celebrating the recipes, ingenuity, history, and heritage of British baking.

With over 100 iconic recipes, The British Baking Book tells the wonderfully evocative story of baking in Britain—and how this internationally cherished tradition has evolved from its rich heritage to today’s immense popularity of The Great British Bake Off.With lavish imagery and evocative narrative, the expert-baker author details the landscape, history, ingenuity, and legends—and show-stopping recipes—that have made British baking a worldwide phenomenon. From cakes, biscuits, and buns to custards, tarts, and pies, authentic recipes for Britain’s spectacular sweet and savory baked goods are included here—like pink-frosted Tottenham cake, jam-layered Victoria sandwich cake, quintessential tea loaf, sweet lamb pie, Yorksire curd tart, and more. Illustrating the story of how British baking evolved throughout the country, many of the recipes have a sense-of-place heritage like Dorset apple cake, Whitby lemon buns, Cornish cake, Grasmere gingerbread, and Scottish oatcakes. Evocative and fascinating, this cookbook offers a guided tour of Britain’s best baking.

London in Bloom showcases the floral abundance of the city’s extraordinary parks, gardens, florists, and flower markets. In this companion to her popular books Paris in Bloom and New York in Bloom, Georgianna Lane takes us on a romantic floral tour of London, juxtaposing luscious blooms with intricate floral details found in iconic architecture. The book also includes:

• A detailed list of recommended parks, gardens, markets, and floral designers
• A spring tour of blossoms and blooms
• A field guide of common spring-blooming trees and shrubs
• Step-by-step instructions for creating a London-style bouquet
• And more

Lane offers a practical travel guide for anyone planning to see London in bloom in real life. She plans out a tour of spring blossoms, with a field guide for identifying flowering trees and shrubs. She even includes a list of addresses for her favorite parks, gardens, floral boutiques, and flower markets.

See London in a completely new light in this guide to the city's hidden secrets, untold stories and special places laden with history which you can discover for yourself!London is famous for its museums, each one full of treasures and relics – but the biggest museum in the capital is the city itself. From the stories behind unusual street names, to the trees in our parks; railings made from recycled WWII stretchers, to shrapnel damage on walls; the hidden symbols on post boxes, to prehistoric tree trunks – there is a rich history hidden in the oft-overlooked details of the city's streets, gardens, parks and buildings.

This richly detailed and beautifully illustrated book provides a miscellany of historic features and curiosities to spot as you wander around the capital. Whether you’ve always wondered why there are cattle troughs on your route to work, why bollards often look like upside down cannons or wanted to know what a Victorian stink pipe is – this book will provide the tools to decipher London’s secret code, and introduce you to a treasure trove of hidden spots to explore.

It is impossible to imagine London without the Tube: the beating heart of the city, the Underground shuttles over a billion passengers each year below its busy streets and across its leafy suburbs. The distinctive roundel, colour-coded maps and Johnston typeface have become design classics, recognised and imitated worldwide.

Opening in 1863, the first sections were operated by steam engines, yet throughout its long history the Tube has been at the forefront of contemporary design, pioneering building techniques, electrical trains and escalators, and business planning. Architects such as Leslie W. Green and Charles Holden developed a distinctively English version of Modernism, and the latest stations for the Jubilee line extension, Overground and Elizabeth line carry this aesthetic forward into the twenty-first century.

In this major work published in association with Transport for London and now updated, Tube expert Oliver Green traces the history of the Underground, following its troubles and triumphs, its wartime and peacetime work, and the essential part it has played in shaping London’s economy, geography, tourism and identity. Specially commissioned photography by Benjamin Graham (UK Landscape Photographer of the Year 2017) brings the story to life in vivid portraits of London Underground’s stations, tunnels and trains.

In this landmark biography of Winston Churchill based on extensive new material, the true genius of the man, statesman and leader can finally be fully seen and understood--by the bestselling, award-winning author of Napoleon and The Last King of America.

When we seek an example of great leaders with unalloyed courage, the person who comes to mind is Winston Churchill: the iconic, visionary war leader immune from the consensus of the day, who stood firmly for his beliefs when everyone doubted him. But how did young Winston become Churchill? What gave him the strength to take on the superior force of Nazi Germany when bombs rained on London and so many others had caved? In Churchill, Andrew Roberts gives readers the full and definitive Winston Churchill, from birth to lasting legacy, as personally revealing as it is compulsively readable.

William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself. His Shakespeare is like no one else's—the beneficiary of Bryson's genial nature, his engaging skepticism, and a gift for storytelling unrivaled in our time.

Think you know the kings and queens of England? Think again.

In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.

Taking us back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn’t exist), Mitchell tells the founding story of post-Roman England up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies). It’s a tale of narcissists, inadequate self-control, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and a few Cnuts, as the English evolved from having their crops stolen by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed king.

How this happened, who it happened to, and why the hell it matters are all questions that Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit, and the full erudition of a man who once studied history—and won’t let it off the hook for the mess it’s made.

A funny book that takes history seriously, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how the British monarchy came to be—and who is to blame.

The tempestuous, bloody, and splendid reign of Henry VIII of England (1509-1547) is one of the most fascinating in all history, not least for his marriage to six extraordinary women. In this accessible work of brilliant scholarship, Alison Weir draws on early biographies, letters, memoirs, account books, and diplomatic reports to bring these women to life. Catherine of Aragon emerges as a staunch though misguided woman of principle; Anne Boleyn, an ambitious adventuress with a penchant for vengeance; Jane Seymour, a strong-minded matriarch in the making; Anne of Cleves, a good-natured and innocent woman naively unaware of the court intrigues that determined her fate; Catherine Howard, an empty-headed wanton; and Catherine Parr, a warm-blooded bluestocking who survived King Henry to marry a fourth time.

Immerse yourself in the vanished world inhabited by Austen’s contemporaries. Packed with detail and anecdotes, this is an intimate exploration of how the middle and upper classes lived from 1775, the year of Austen’s birth, to the coronation of George IV in 1820. Sue Wilkes skillfully conjures up all aspects of daily life within the period, drawing on contemporary diaries, illustrations, letters, novels, travel literature, and archives.

• Were all unmarried affluent men really “in want of a wife”?
• Where would a young lady seek adventure?
• Would “taking the waters” at Bath and other spas kill or cure you?
• Was Lizzy Bennet bitten by bed-bugs while traveling?
• What would you wear to a country ball or a dance at Almack’s?
• Would Mr. Darcy have worn a corset?
• What hidden horrors lurked in elegant Regency houses?

A vivid and immersive history of Georgian England that gives its reader a firsthand experience of life as it was truly lived during the era of Jane Austen, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the Duke of Wellington.

This is the age of Jane Austen and the Romantic poets; the paintings of John Constable and the gardens of Humphry Repton; the sartorial elegance of Beau Brummell and the poetic license of Lord Byron; Britain's military triumphs at Trafalgar and Waterloo; the threat of revolution and the Peterloo massacre. In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveler's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history: the Regency, or Georgian England.

A time of exuberance, thrills, frills and unchecked bad behavior, it was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. At the same time, it was a period of transition that reflected unprecedented social, economic, and political change. And like all periods in history, it was an age of many contradictions—where Beethoven's thundering Fifth Symphony could premier in the same year that saw Jane Austen craft the delicate sensitivities of Persuasion.

Tune In is the New York Times bestseller by the world’s leading Beatles authority – the first volume in a groundbreaking trilogy about the band that revolutionized music. The Beatles have been in our lives for half a century and surely always will be. Still, somehow, their music excites, their influence resonates, their fame sustains. New generations find and love them, and while many other great artists come and go, the Beatles are beyond eclipse. So . . . who really were these people, and just how did it all happen?