Books Movies and More Blog | Marin County Free Library

All branches of the Marin County Free Library will be closed on Monday, May 27, 2013, in observance of Memorial Day.

Ruthless Politics

Posted Sep 19, 2012

In these days of a close Presidential campaign, you might decide that politics is a ruthless and dangerous game. But as a fan of history and historical novels, I have been reading books about Tudor England, when you could find yourself in the king’s favor one day, rise to the height of power and wealth, and the next day crash disastrously and literally lose your head. Now that is ruthless.

Here are some books to prove the point.

Wolf Hall , by Hilary Mantel. Told from the point of view of Thomas Cromwell, adviser to Henry VIII, we are drawn into the story of Henry’s determination to get rid of his first wife Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, bringing about instability throughout Europe and eventually leading to the creation of the Church of England.

Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel. Continuing the story of Henry VIII’s desire to father a son and heir, again told through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who is as ruthless as necessary, we learn about the terrible fate of Anne Boleyn.

The Lady Elizabeth, by Alison Weir. The reader enters the tumultuous early life of Anne Boleyn’s daughter and her perilous path to the throne of England.

Elizabeth: the Struggle for the Throne, by David Starkey. This non-fiction biography covers the same early period of Elizabeth’s life: her dangerous journey when her destiny was unknown and she was forced to navigate using her formidable intelligence and courage.

Posted by: Nancy Davis

Nancy is the branch manager of the Corte Madera and Marin City libraries.

This is an official blog for the Marin County Free Library.

County of Marin Social Media User Responsibility Guidelines

Comments

Add comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Subject:

Comment: *

Input format

Filtered HTML

Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

WYSIWYG - Allow inline styles

Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
You may embed videos from the following providers vimeo, youtube. Just add the video URL to your textarea in the place where you would like the video to appear, i.e. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw0jmvdh.
Allowed HTML tags: <a> <blockquote> <br> <caption> <center> <cite> <code> <dd> <div> <dl> <dt> <em> <h3> <h4> <img> <li> <ol> <p> <span> <strong> <table> <tbody> <td> <th> <thead> <tr> <u> <ul>
Allowed Style properties: background-color, border, border-bottom, border-bottom-color, border-bottom-style, border-bottom-width, border-color, border-left, border-left-color, border-left-style, border-left-width, border-right, border-right-color, border-right-width, border-style, border-top, border-top-color, border-top-style, border-top-width, border-width, clear, float, font, font-family, font-size, font-style, font-variant, font-weight, height, margin, margin-bottom, margin-left, margin-right, margin-top, padding, padding-bottom, padding-left, padding-right, text-align, text-decoration, text-indent, width

More information about formatting options