BRING UP THE BODIES

by Hilary Mantel

Mantel won the Booker Award for Wolf Hall in 2009, and again this year for the sequel, Bring Up The Bodies. These are demanding works of historical fiction, and I've counted about the same number of likes and dislikes for Mantel among those with whom I talk about books. The problem isn't the subject. In the same manner that for a while any self-help book that came out with Jane Austen in the title became an immediate hit, Tudor history has a built-in audience. It's the writing (I can't exactly pinpoint why) that bothers me. Maybe a little heavy, turgid and at times overstepping into purple prose territory--but I normally like dense, challenging books. At any rate, the books are at the very least worth a moment to look at, and will certainly find admirers. Every book has a reader, and every reader has a book. As for me, I will be eagerly awaiting the US release of Peter Ackroyd's Tudors: A History of England, Volume II, or just order it from Amazon UK.