Recommend good book to learn about UK history?

Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain!



Or better still, try to catch repeats of the TV programme... i found it absolutely riveting and can watch it over and over again.

Another book I quite like is John O'Farrell's "An Utterly Impartial History of Britain". But its mostly a silly book! :-)

That's the one I was gonna recommend.

If you want the Reader's Digest version of the "full" history of Britain (Roman to present days) then I can recommend Rebecca Fraser's "The Story of Britain."  Organized primarily by ruling family, then by kind/queen, it is necessarily succinct in its treatment of each period, but still gives you enough basic information to a) figure out what king/queen people are talking about, b) understand why the English historically hate the French and c) get some answers right on Quiz Night at the pub. 

If you want the Reader's Digest version of the "full" history of Britain (Roman to present days) then I can recommend Rebecca Fraser's "The Story of Britain."  Organized primarily by ruling family, then by kind/queen, it is necessarily succinct in its treatment of each period, but still gives you enough basic information to a) figure out what king/queen people are talking about, b) understand why the English historically hate the French and c) get some answers right on Quiz Night at the pub. 

That's probably a good choice as an intro. Think I'd go with that one, if I had to choose only one.
Then there's 1066 and all that!!   

Wow thank you all for the information. I'll start with the DVD first 

If you want something a bit lighter and , which still gives a pretty impressive 'whizz through' English history, try John O 'Farrell's  'An Utterly Impartial History of Britain or 2000 Years of Upper-class Idiots in Charge'.

I enjoyed that book - another one I enjoyed was 'England, The Autobiography'. 

This is a series of 'essays' starting with the writings of Julius Caesar in 55 BC and ending with Jonny Wilkinson in 2003.  The writings in between are written by famous and infamous people, as well as people who were just people, along with a few 'anonymous' writings.

I think I might read it again...