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Post by tommo III on Aug 6, 2021 10:55:28 GMT
These three "Kingsbridge" novels with about 1000 pages each have kept me absorbed all year, and are just about the best things I've ever read. Books 2 and 3 have had 8-part film series made and are well worth buying the DVDs although some of the storylines have been changed. Book 1 was written only recently and is a prequel, set in the 10th century. Books 2 and 3 are set in the 12th and 14th centuries respectively. It has been claimed that Follett based Kingsbridge on the town of Marlborough in Wilts, but having compared the landscapes my theory is that it bears more resemblance to Malmesbury.
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Post by tommo III on Feb 1, 2022 23:24:48 GMT
Returning to the Wars Of The Roses theme, whilst keeping sets of three, I can heartily recommend the late novelist Rosemary Hawley Jarman: The first covers the life of Elizabeth Woodville from the point of view of her servant the fictional though plausible 'Nut Brown Maid' The second gives a comprehensive account of Edward IV's two reigns from the point of view of his court jester; The final book gives an insight into the rise and fall of Richard III as written by one of his knight-archers awaiting execution by Henry VII following Bosworth. Richard III is depicted in a sympathetic manner, and I am finally won over to the rival view to that of Shakespeare (that he ordered the murder of the Princes in the Tower to further his own career).
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Post by tommo III on Jun 15, 2022 21:31:45 GMT
Tommo's summer-in-the-garden reading: Doom Assigned speculates on how things may have worked out had Richard III won Bosworth instead of meeting his end there. Great scene describing Henry VII trying to escape across Morecambe Bay to the Isle Of Man and disappearing in quicksand. The York King describes events from 1464-on when things started to go wrong in the early part of Edward IV's reign causing the fall-out with the Earl of Warwick. On Summer Seas picks up on Edward's return from exile in the Low Countries to regain his throne (1471) and runs on to his early death at the age of 40 leading to the constitutional crisis of 1483 and Richard III's opportunism.
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Post by tommo III on Aug 8, 2022 21:39:51 GMT
Just finished book 2 of the Laurence the Armourer trilogy and started on book 3: 'Wilderness' is the best so far, generous historical content, much on the psychology of why things might have happened a certain way, many locations visited, gripping rescues and fights, and you are introduced to hitherto-obscure Catesby, Ratcliff, Lovell and Sir James Tyrell. Roaring Tide (so I understand) covers the insecurities of the early part of Henry VII's reign, and claims that Perkin Warbeck was indeed the younger of the two Princes in the Tower. Am by now convinced that the Battle of Bosworth Field was won by the wrong side !
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