Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish and is now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week a new theme is suggested for bloggers to participate in. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want. Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to The Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.

This week’s topic is Books With Nationalities in the Title, and honestly, I was really struggling with this one. I was finding hardly anything in my library – and the books I was finding were all much the same.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone at university studying Classical Studies, I have quite a lot of books with either Greek or Roman in the title, but they’re mostly variations on a theme, namely, mythology.

And while a list of ‘ten books called Greek or Roman mythology’ would technically follow the prompt, it also somehow feels a little disingenuous. Although… possibly a future blog post idea?

What I did discover, however, is that I own a lot of different social and cultural histories about Britain. So I’m bending the prompt slightly this week. Britain is, of course, a place rather than a nationality – that would be British – but close enough!

I present: Ten Books With Britain in the Title (or, mostly, the subtitle).

Guy de la Bédoyère – Gods with Thunderbolts: Religion in Roman Britain
Romans, religion and archaeology – three things almost guaranteed to get my attention.

George Goodwin – Fatal Rivalry: Flodden, 1513: Henry VIII and James IV and the Battle for Renaissance Britain
Because apparently one dramatic royal family isn’t enough; sometimes you need two of them fighting each other.

Ronald Hutton – The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain
A deep dive into the festivals, customs and rituals that have marked the British year – exactly my sort of social history.

Amy Jeffs – Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain
Myths, legends, beautiful storytelling and the strange tales we’ve told about these islands.

Joe Moran – Armchair Nation: An Intimate History of Britain in Front of the TV
Proof that social history doesn’t have to be kings and battles – sometimes it’s all about what we were watching on the telly.

Alice Roberts – Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials
Seven graves, thousands of years of history, and archaeology being used to piece individual lives back together.

Guy Shrubsole – The Lost Rainforests of Britain
Yes, Britain has rainforests. Finding that out was pretty much enough to make me want to read this.

Phoebe Smith – Wayfarer: Love, Loss and Life on Britain’s Ancient Paths
History beneath your feet: ancient routes, landscape and the people who have travelled them before us.

Mark Wallington – The Uke of Wallington: One Man and His Ukulele Round Britain
A man travels around Britain with a ukulele. Sometimes a book really doesn’t need a harder sell than that.

Thomas Waters – Cursed Britain: A History of Witchcraft and Black Magic in Modern Times
Witchcraft, curses and social history – obviously this was going to end up on my shelves.