Yet more Tudor reading: "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel

I feel I should be brief. So here goes.

This is once again an extraordinary and outstanding novel, a brilliant evocation of a historical period and the minds and motivations of the characters in its great political drama. It also took me an extraordinarily long time to read it. Though I wanted to dedicate quality time to it, I never seemed quite to manage it. 

In my post about Wolf Hall, best part of a year ago, I mentioned a similar phenomenon: the paradoxical experience of these books as both wonderful novels and rather hard slogs. Many people have since told me they feel the same. On this occasion, there was perhaps less difficulty - after reading Wolf Hall, it is easier to slip into Mantel narrative mode - but also less discovery.

And yet, don't get me wrong, this is a must-read, and when part three of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy comes out (The Mirror and the Light, apparently, expected 2015) I will definitely be reading it.  All the nice things I said about Wolf Hall hold good.

But right now, I'm pining for a book that grabs me, a page-turner that needs to be read at every opportunity. How that works out will emerge in the next review, coming a bit sooner than this one did, I hope.

And that's it. After the length, the brevity.