James, Lawrence. Aristocrats: Power, Grace and Decadence: Britain’s Great Ruling Classes from 1066 to the Present.

NY: St. Martin, 2009.

The ruling elite in Britain — originally simply the warrior class — adopted the Aristotelian concept of “government by the best,” the author says, to reinforce their deep sense of natural superiority, the “long process of collective self-hypnosis by which aristocrats convinced themselves that their distinctive qualities made them indispensible to the nation.” This argument of hereditary superiority was still being made in 1999 even as most of the hereditary peers were being expelled from the upper house of Parliament.

Duncan, Andrew. The Reality of Monarchy.

Rev. ed. London: Pan Books, 1973. 381p.

The author, a skilled journalist, interviewer, and script writer, spent most of a year following the Queen and the Royal Family around, beginning with the opening of Parliament in October 1968 and ending with the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales the following July.

Bowman, Alan K. Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier: Vindolanda and Its People.

NY: Routledge, 1998 (London: British Museum Press, 1994).

When Rome reached a certain point in its conquest of Britain — around the end of the governorship of Agricola in AD 85 — a policy decision was reached that the Picts in the far north of the island (against whom Agricola had led several expeditions without much effect) simply weren’t worth the trouble. Eventually, the result was Hadrian’s Wall, begun about AD 122, but before the construction of that permanent boundary, the Roman army established a string of forts of assorted sizes somewhat farther south and stretching across Britain from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth.

Miers, Mary. The English Country House, from the Archives of Country Life.

NY: Rizzoli, 2009.

Country Life magazine was founded in 1897 and in every issue since then it has featured, in glorious photographic detail, one or another of England’s rural homes. Moreover, the editors have concentrated not on “greatly stately piles and ducal palaces,” as Miers calls them, but on actual residences still inhabited by actual families — often the descendants of the original folks who built them many centuries ago.

Paxman, Jeremy. On Royalty: a Very Polite Inquiry into Some Strangely Related Families.

NY: PublicAffairs, 2007.

The author displays a winning combination of erudition, wit, and journalistic skill in considering the nature of the contemporary British royal family and its ability to survive, with occasional comparisons to earlier generations (especially the Stewarts) and to other European royalty.

Montagu of Beaulieu, Lord. More Equal than Others: The Changing Fortunes of the British and European Aristocracies.

NY: St. Martin, 1970.

With multiple descents from the ninth-century FitzAlans of Brittany (Seneschals of Dol) through the Stewart kings of Scotland and England, the author’s blood is as blue as they come, but, like a surprising number of the more modern among the hereditary peers of lengthy lineage, his attitudes are an interesting combination of aristocratic stewardship and enlightened democratic reform.

Talbot, Bryan. Alice in Sunderland.

Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2007.

This oversized graphic novel has gotten quite a few awed reviews, so I had hopes of an unusual reading experience. What it is, basically, is a rather detailed history of every bleeding thing that has ever happened in and around the Northumbrian port town of Sunderland.

Le Carré, John. Call for the Dead.

NY: Walker, 1961.

I read a great deal, both classic literature and recent novels, and have done for half a century. In all that time, I have accrued a list of favorite characters, from Elizabeth Summerson and Dorothea Brooke to Lazarus Long and Harry Flashman. And George Smiley, the short, fat, nearsighted genius of the Secret Intelligence Service during the Cold War, is very near the top of that list.

Paton Walsh, Jill & Dorothy Sayers. A Presumption of Death.

NY: St. Martin, 2002.

Certain long-running series of stories featuring noteworthy protagonists seem to become a lure to other writers to continue the hero’s adventures. The most prominent example, of course, is Sherlock Holmes. And most of the many attempts to write additional tales featuring the Great Detective have been pretty weak. (These days, there’s the phenomenon known as “fan fiction,” but that’s almost always amateur stuff and since it’s written for non-commercial fun, no one expects it to be better than mediocre.)

Sayers, Dorothy L. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club.

NY: Harper & Row, 1928.

Gentlemen’s clubs are a peculiar facet of British upper-class life, serving as a place of retreat from family, from the hoi-polloi, and from all women. Most of London’s clubs are rather different places now, but in the 1920s they still were going strong.