Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

That’s A Lotta Kings!

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones

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Yes, my find-Game-of-Thrones-in-history fetish is well known. You don’t need me to rehash it. But one thing I’m not clear on: what is the fascination people have with the Tudors? Is it because of Henry VIII? Elizabeth I? The tv shows? Because I find the Plantagenets far more fascinating. This is the story of how the English empire began to extend its greasy tentacles. Packed with enough court intrigue to suffocate a horse. And Dan Jones is an excellent chronicler of it all. Yes, there […]

“Fighting a one-man war against the twentieth century:” Jane Ridley’s Attempt to Make George V Interesting

George V: Never a Dull Moment by Jane Ridley

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For the general reader who’s curious about Royal history and will only read one book about George V, this is the best pick. Jane Ridley is a great writer and puts lots of interesting details in here. She has a real gift for summarizing complicated topics and synthesizing them into very readable prose. One of my most intense special interests is Edward VII, so I’ve read a lot of books about him and his family. I have a collection of coronation memorabilia and a pretty […]

News from back then

Strange Victoriana: Tales of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from Our Victorian Ancestors by Jan Bondeson

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Strange Victoriana, the first from my massive pile of Christmas swag, is an entertaining collection of the weird, wonderful, spooky, salacious, and sometimes downright macabre stories taken from the Illustrated Police News (IPN) – an immensely popular tabloid of the time (you’ll have seen some of its illustrations before, particularly if you’ve ever had any kind of interest in the Jack the Ripper case which the IPN went to town on). Victorians are often thought of as incredibly repressed and prudish, while a quick peruse […]

The King who brought back partying

A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration by Jenny Uglow

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Charles II is an interesting figure to me, partly because he seems so much more human than the joyless Oliver Cromwell who’d preceded him having lopped Charles’ dad’s head off (also interesting to me, as despite my reading habits I’m actually anti-monarchy) but mostly influenced by the fact that before reading this, pretty much everything I knew about him was gleaned from Horrible Histories (and this song in particular – to be fair, they do a pretty decent job of covering the highlights). Thanks to […]

The Crown ain’t got nothing on this

Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court by Lucy Worsley

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For some years now I’ve been trying to work my way somewhat chronologically through English history, but a new mania for all things Georgian plus Lucy Worsley had me eagerly jumping ahead (I’m coming back for you, Charlie II, don’t worry). Inspired by the King’s Grand Staircase at Kensington Palace, commissioned by George I and featuring portraits of the servants of the Royal household, Courtiers is a brilliantly gossipy look at the reigns of Georges I and II and the different figures that peopled their […]

who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel

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Yes, I know that Hamilton and Tudor England are not the same thing, but we all know that history is decided by the survivors. Who won? Whoever died last. Who was paid, how much was spent, who wielded the most glorious or secret power, who promised what to where- it does not matter. Thomas Cromwell, in the moment at least, lost. He was *centuries old spoiler alert* beheaded, and spent the last several hundred years painted as a scoundrel and a cheat. Many called him a […]



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