itt WOLF HALL the book by hilary mantel and the upcoming hbo/bbc miniseries based on the same

ok i'm about 1/4 through this and i'm all in.

damn I really want to read this now

mantel profile http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/15/121015fa_fact_macfarquhar?currentPage=all

Remarkable profile. Unusually bold style for the New Yorker.

and another booker prize

I'm actually reading APoGS with a book on the french revolution in the other hand, to clarify as i go.
― Jesu swept (ledge), Wednesday, June 6, 2012 4:10 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

doing the same w/wolf hall & wikipedia

this book is brilliant

paperback of sequel not due till april 2013 wtf /gettingaheadofmyself

i've had this on my 'list:read/sublist:probably won't read' for a while but based on the enthusiasm here i'm gonna bump it up.

is it historical fiction like the da vinci code or like the holocaust?

its a prequel to the davinci code

Oh FINE, I'll read this. (Also bumping to top of list based mostly on max's enthusiasm if I'm being completely honest.) Usually I don't like historical fiction because it always ends badly, because no one ever writes about all the nameless people of history who DIDN'T make terrible personal choices and therefore didn't make a bad end in a dark alley (or a tower courtyard). But OKAY, JEEZ.

can i read Bring Up The Bodies without reading Wolf Hall first?

you prob could, it does a bunch of recapping, but really its just the 2nd part of the same book, it picks up right where wolf hall left off and everything, recommend starting at the beginning

but i understand that it's much better than Wold Hall and i don't have the patience to read 1000 pages now..

lol who said that, crazy talk

i think maybe i liked wolf hall a lil better but really they are v v similar

reviews..
xpost

thanks for the tip anyway..

from my vantage point of being halfway thru the first book after picking it up yesterday i would say that "better" is relative to the point of irrelevance. this is excellent.

James wood liked wolf hall better

im reading ' a place of greater safety ' now -- her french revolution one and

yall

it

is

so

good

i dont want to read history anymore i just want to read hilary mantels historical novels. i want hilary mantel on the 30 yrs war

hilary mantel on the unification of italy

hilary mantels lenin

Gotta read these books

If someone wants to convince me what makes them so great in two sentences I might be inspired.

i can't imagine that anyone who is interested at all by the premise would fail to enjoy the wolf hall books

Too many years reading academic history books has made this kind of thing hard to get into, but I love the period.

its a better written version of a massive fantasy epic except the people are all real and the only magic is mastery of political intrigues

Well done!

lamp hardcore otm. i was hoping no one else had noticed. i have a developing idea for kind of ripping off the style of these books but applied to a different historical era and disguised in a more fantastical setting.

tom crom, space pirate

not really but that might actually be better

"better written" is of course u+k

lamp super otm

Wolf Hall rly rly reminded me of Dorothy Dunnet's Niccolo series (which is just historical fiction, no dragons or w/e), like i knew WH was more ~literary~ and shit and the Niccolo books happen like a century earlier, but the scenes in my mind all had a really similar feel to them.

to which end i prefer A Place Of Greater Safety because Camille Desmoulins

so dreamy

um i mean because it feels more distinct, more its own book and its own world.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

i read this earlier this week and was really blown away, its maybe a little ott here and there but altogether a really wonderful essay/lecture whatever

anyway i was... interested to see this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280780/Kate-Middleton-plastic-princess-designed-breed-Author-Hilary-Mantel-attacks-Duchess-Cambridge.html

this morning. linked to by matt drudge of all people

You'll want the daily mail thread

i'll say this here rather than on the daily mail thread but this is an amazing piece of writing

Man, I can't believe I waited so long to read these. I just started Bring up the Bodies. I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what makes them so amazing and I can't, really. I just never want to stop reading them.

are you from England?

Nope

I'm just early in Wolf Hall, but really enjoying it. Supposedly I will read the whole thing in time for a book club discussion next weekend, we'll see. I had missed the Mantel-Duchess contretemps linked above, but it's pretty funny -- not surprising that the tabloids and Cameron entirely missed the point of the lecture, or that in "defending" Kate they pretty much illustrated what she was saying. Hillary Mantel seems like an interesting person.

cause i'm not, and i thought that was the main reason i didn't care.

I didn't know there was a thread for this! I love the shit out of these books.

Finally reading A Place of Greater Safety now and I love the shit out of it, too. Max OTM up thread about wanting her to write books about all areas of historical interest to me.

Also, totally reading APoGS while constantly consulting Wikipedia. I didn't have to do that with WH/Bring up the Bodies thanks to 15 + years of obsessive reading about Tudor England, but I don't know jack about the French Revolution, aside from what I've learned from a few tepid History Channel documentaries. Completely agree with lagO_on that this is a great way to learn history.

And I did not know about Dorothy Dunnett, so Niccolo Rising is on my list now, too.

old news now, nice

http://variety.com/2013/tv/international/mark-rylance-set-to-star-in-wolf-hall-bodies-adaptation-1200005566/

i bought BUTB but i'm tearing through WH again first. still so good.

stall about 200 pages into WH; picked up BUTB now it's in pb - need to restart WH and blitz through both