Tag Archives: Bring Up The Bodies

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel

The Assassination of Margaret ThatcherFollowing the Man Booker Prize-winning ‘Wolf Hall‘ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies‘, the final part of Mantel’s acclaimed trilogy about the life of Thomas Cromwell, ‘The Mirror and the Light’ isn’t due to be published until the end of next year at the very earliest. Presumably brought out to keep Mantel’s fans satisfied in the meantime, ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ is a collection of ten short stories, her second collection after ‘Learning to Talk’ was published in 2003. Having read three of Mantel’s novels and her memoir, I was keen to see how her shorter works of fiction compared.
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Books I Thought I Would Struggle With But Didn’t

Generally, I avoid picking up books which I don’t think I will enjoy.  However, that doesn’t mean I always have super high expectations for everything I read. Here is my list of books I initially thought I would struggle with but actually liked a lot.

Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

I wasn’t sure if I would like a book as ‘philosophical’ as this one but I did.  It’s still a pretty weird book and might be viewed as pretentious, but as I said in my review, it’s a very readable sort of pretentiousness. Continue reading

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Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

I read ‘Wolf Hall‘ nearly a year ago and to be honest, I can’t remember a great deal about the actual content of the story and had to force myself to finish it.  Although the book was undoubtedly a quality piece of historical fiction, my main gripe about it was that there were too many characters and unless you have studied early sixteenth century British history in considerable depth then it is very hard to keep track of exactly who is who.  However, although ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ also has a large cast of characters, this instalment of the trilogy is set over a much narrower time period (one year rather than three decades) and the story of Anne Boleyn’s downfall is likely to be much more familiar to readers than Thomas Cromwell’s early years (at least it was to me anyway).  The fact that it’s over 200 pages shorter than ‘Wolf Hall’ also helps a lot. Continue reading

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The Man Booker Prize 2012

So Hilary Mantel has done it again.  ‘Bring Up The Bodies’ has been crowned the Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012.  Mantel won the Booker Prize for ‘Wolf Hall’ in 2009, the first part of her trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell, so this makes her the first woman and the first British person to win it twice.  I’m sure I’m not alone in passing on many congratulations to Mantel for this huge and much deserved achievement. Continue reading

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