from bcquinnsmom

In Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel takes a slice of Tudor history and allows the reader to view it through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell,. who rose through life from his origins as the son of a blacksmith to become the chief minister of King Henry VIII. From his humble origins, he manages to become an imp...

from ElizabethChapman

Wolf Hall is extraordinarily good historical fiction, so good in fact that I hesitate to lump it into that genre (which all too often is a grab bag for some very poorly conceived and executed novels.) Author Hilary Mantel takes as her subject the court of Henry VIII during the period when the kin...

from kidzdoc

This book is a masterpiece of historical fiction, probably the best book I've read this year, and it replaces The Glass Room as my favorite of the 2009 Booker Prize longlisted and shortlisted books. The novel starts spectacularly, as a young Thomas Cromwell is being beaten nearly to death by his ...

from lauralkeet

I was thrilled to get my hands on the 2009 Booker Prize winner within just a few weeks of its US release. The first ten pages included a detailed cast of characters and a Tudor family tree, a sure sign I was diving into a rich, detailed saga. I hunkered down and was hooked from the first line, ut...

from zugenia

Perfect historical fiction--delicately paced, with suspense derived from the tension between the book's imagined world and the reader's presumed understanding of historical events. I started reading this after a day at London's National Portrait Gallery, and I had Holbein's images in my head the ...