Lauren Ducommun

It’s that time of year again, when I don’t quite know what day it is, but during all the respite, bookish plans are proposed. I like to enter a new year of reading with some sort of intentionality.

For the past eight years, I’ve kept a Moleskine journal of places I want to see in the United Kingdom. It looks like this dream may become a reality, as my son and I are in the throes of planning a trip in spring 2017.

With that in mind, I’m devoting 2026 to reading about all things British. British legends and literature are also among my favorite stories, so this is a reading challenge I would enjoy regardless of whether our trip becomes a reality or not.

Perhaps you are both an Anglophile and a bibliophile and would like to join this British reading challenge! I’ve chosen five categories: British History, British Myths & Legends, Brit Lit, British Theologians, and British Publishers. You can download the reading challenge for free below! And tag me (@laurenducommun) on Instagram if you are participating!

Here are some recommendations: (I’ll update the list later this week with more options)

British History

• Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall
• The Story of Britain by R.J. Unstead
• The Birth of Britain by Winston Churchill
• Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede
• The History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
• The Life of King Alfred by John Asser
• The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation by Michael Drout

OR British Historical Fiction:

• The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
• Men of Iron by Howard Pyle
• Children of New Forest by Frederick Marryat
• The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff
• Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Grey
• In Freedom’s Cause by G.A. Henty

British Myths & Legends

• Beowulf trans. by Burton Raffel
• Stories of Beowulf Told to the Children by H. E. Marshall
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo trans. by J.R.R. Tolkien
• King Arthur by Mary Macleod
• King Arthur by Andrew Lang
• King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
• The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle
• The Once and Future King by T.H. White
• Galahad and the Grail by Malcolm Guite (pre-order now)
• Wordhoard: Anglo-Saxon Stories for Young People by Jill Walsh

Brit Lit

• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
• Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
• The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Macbeth by Shakespeare
• The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
• The Scarlett Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy

British Theologians

• Charles Spurgeon
• John Bunyan
• John Flavel
• Michael Reeves (Delighting in the Trinity)
• C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity, The Problem of Pain)
• J.I. Packer
• David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
• Richard Baxter
• Andrew Fuller
• Carl Trueman
• Rebecca McLaughlin (Confronting Christianity)
• Natalie Brand

British Publishers

• Evangelical Press
• The Good Book Company UK
• Union Publishing
• Canterbury Press