Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch
A time there was when a son was born to humble parents in the Surrey village of Putney, a place of little account, at a ferry crossing on the bank of the Thames, 6 miles upstream from the King’s Palace of Westminster.
The Dry by Jane Harper
It wasn’t as though the farm hadn’t seen death before, and the blowflies didn’t discriminate.
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
The day was flat. That morning his mind had abandoned him and left his body wandering down below.
Taking the Waters by Lesley Sainty
It was spa season in Cheltenham.
Catherine Meyrick 
Thomas Cromwell is certainly an intriguing figure; what would Britain look like if he hadn’t been there?
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It is interesting to think. My first thought, out of self-interest, is that we genealogists would be pulling our hair out more than we already do.
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I hope you’re going to review Thomas Cromwell. I’m hoping to get to it towards the end of the year or the beginning of the next.
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I’m not planning to. It is far more than just a biography of Thomas Cromwell, it is also examination of his times. I think it is a masterpiece and there are so many other excellent reviews that I don’t believe I have anything new to add. I had planned to review the Mirror and the Light but felt the same when I came to try to do it. I think both books need to sit side by side. MacCulloch examines all the possibilities the way a true historian does and Mantel as a novelist takes a position that gives us a deep sense of a real person. Whether this is ‘the’ Thomas Cromwell is something we cannot know but it is a brilliant book.
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I might move them both up my TBR list, then.
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They are both definitely worth it.
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