Discover our favourite London-y reads this festive season

Looking for a good book to curl up with this winter? Christmas shopping for a voracious reader? We've done the hard work for you, putting together three reading lists that cater to all flavours of bibliophile. 

If fiction's your thing, check out our list of brilliant LGBTQ+ books set in London. From contemporary novels by Kae Tempest and Lauren John Joseph, to the uncensored version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey, these ten reads offer the chance to see the capital from fresh perspectives.

Fancy learning more about the the city of yore? Matt Brown, pilot of Londonist: Time Machine, has narrowed down his favourite London history books to a not-so-shortlist of 18. These include Peter Ackroyd's enormous yet enormously readable London: A Biography and Rachel Kolsky's Women's London, which explores how women have shaped the capital.

Finally, there's our 2023 gift guide — a miscellany of coffee table-style reads, including two penned by our own fair hands. You can browse all three reading lists and buy the books that tickle your fancy on our Bookshop storefront (we may earn a small commision). Bookshop.org sources titles from independent bookshops, thereby helping small businesses. An excellent excuse to fill up your bookshelves, if ever you needed one!