Sunday, September 25th, 2011
My guilty pleasure this summer seems to be reading obese historical thrillers and crime novels – a genre pairing that seems to get me every time. CJ Sansom, of course, falls into this category, regularly coming in at more than 400 pages in huge editions, and I’ve recently discovered that Phil Rickman, sometime purveyor of supernatural horror, has been at it as well with books such as Bones of Avalon.
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
I’d had a bit of a rude awakening regarding the Civil War and the Restoration courtesy of my favourite book of 2007, An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. This splendid historical thriller is set during the period in question – and made me realise how just little I actually knew about it. So off to consult the Googloracle and track down an authoritative biography of England’s most recent military dictator. This brought me to the feet of Christopher Hill who in 1970 wrote this ground-breaking biography.