United Kingdom - BOOKS Expat memoirs about living in the UK

[Pauline]

Americashire: a Field Guide to a Marriage by Jennifer Richardson (2013). "When an American woman and her British husband decide to buy a two-hundred-year-old cottage in the heart of the Cotswolds, they're hoping for an escape from their London lives. Instead, their decision about whether or not to have a child plays out against a backdrop of village fêtes, rural rambles, and a cast of eccentrics clad in corduroy and tweed." I loved this book! Great story, set in the area I love, and with walking trails as part of the story! Amazon.com link

A Place in My Country by Ian Walthew. A beautifully written memoir of a couple moving to the Cotswolds (south of Cirencester) and living in a village. Stories of village life and what is happening to rural life in England. Highly recommended by Kathy and Pauline. Amazon.com link

A Cotswold Village or Country Life and Pursuits in Gloucestershire, by J Arthur Gibbs. Written in the late 19th century about life in the Cotswolds. Free for Kindle on Amazon. Wikipedia - J Arthur Gibbs

Post your favorites and I will keep a master list on this first post.

 

[artnbarb]

I want to read this one before we come!

 

[Kathy]

Pauline, your post about Americashire reminded me of a book I bought used, enjoyed, and still have on my bedtable.

A Place in My Country by Ian Walthew. (Amazon says it was published in 2015 but it's an older book than that.) Ian and his wife buy a house in the Cotswolds... not your typical expat story... interesting view of how life is changing in small villages.

See this review: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/3340845/Elegy-for-a-fading-England.html

 

[Pauline]

@Kathy I have been meaning to write about that book. I read it on my Kindle last year (it was available from Amazon.co.uk) and loved it. I ordered a used hard cover copy to keep. I think it is being re-released now and will be available. Ian Walthew now lives in rural France. He rents out his Paris apartment and a vacation rental on his property in the country.

I am happy to hear that you loved it too. I thought it was a beautifully written story. He and his wife bought a house in Coates, just south of Cirencester. I think if he had bought in the Stroud valleys they might have stayed. Just a few miles west would have made a big difference, I think. More people who live full time in the area. But what he had to say about the changes to rural life are very true, I think.

Here are my notes and links about him:

http://aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.co.uk/ - blog from 2008 - 2009, a year in the Auvergne

http://www.ianwalthew.com/

https://twitter.com/Ianwalthew

Lives in Ambert, France. Vacation rental http://www.gite-rural-auvergne.fr/

Also rents Montmartre apt in Paris (according to review on Amazon).
http://www.montmartreabbesses.com/
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Vacati...Charme_in_Montmartre-Paris_Ile_de_France.html

Article - http://www.thisfrenchlife.com/thisfrenchlife/2008/08/ian-walthew-aut.html
Article - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3340845/Elegy-for-a-fading-England.html

 

[Pauline]

I had an email from Ian Walthew, author of A Place in My Country. I had followed him on Twitter and he saw my Cotswolder website. He is asking for help promoting this book. It got great reviews when originally published, but the publishing company changed hands and the new people were not enthusiastic about promoting the book. It is out of print now but available for the Kindle on US and UK.

Link for A Place in My Country on Amazon.com

I loved this book. It does not present the typical rural idyll of the Cotswolds, but instead looks at how the way of life was changing for the worse in the early 2000s for the locals. It is a memoir. Ian and his wife traded a small apartment in London for a cottage in the Cotswolds. Ian describes their life and the lives of the people in the village they lived in. It is a time of big change in their lives, moving from careers in the big city to making a go of it by working independently. In the end they leave the Cotswolds and move to rural France.

I need to read the book again to refresh the details of it.

So, let's help Ian and read the book if you haven't, the put reviews on Amazon and tweet and Facebook it.

And he has a new book out - The Complex Chemistry of Loss

(I was totally thrilled to get an email from him!!)

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

Bill Bryson has a new book out. It's his first travel book in 15 years. A follow up to Notes From a Small Island which I devoured lo those many years ago. I loved him before he was uber famous. Some of his earlier works are just so funny and pointed. I wonder what his latest observations will say about his adopted country. Now he is no longer a poor expat but seriously ensconced with the British Elite. I believe he is Chancellor at some toffy school.

 

[jonathan]

. I believe he is Chancellor at some toffy school.

Well, he was Chancellor of Durham University for 5 years (until 2011) - but I'm not sure I'd call Durham toffy! The present chancellor is Sir Thomas Allen, the opera singer.

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

Oops but it does make him a true Brit, no? So what's he been doing since? Tootling about and writing about everything and nothing. Now back to his roots as a witty travel writer.

 

[Pauline]

I started Notes from a Small Island years ago and didn't finish it. I will try his latest one first. I always hear good things about his books. Thanks @Lisa in Ottawa .

And isn't Durham just one notch below Oxford and Cambridge (or am I thinking of somewhere else)? Doesn't that make it a bit toffy? I guess no one in our current government went there ... so, maybe not.