| ‘Bring Up the Bodies’ by Hilary Mantel | ||
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A+ Excellent (95%) | Summary of the Reviews: | |
| Reviewers were genuinely surprised Mantel could make this particular period of history fresh and engaging, with all the other media out there on it. The second book in her trilogy about Cromwell (Thomas, not Oliver), it will keep you hooked even though you already know the ending. | ||
| ISBN: 978-0805090031, Pages: 432 | ||
| Fiction | Historical Fiction | Prosenotes Pick | ||
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THE BOOK JACKET:
The sequel to Hilary Mantel’s 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne’s head? |
THE REVIEWS:
| Charles McGrath – New York Times Sunday Book Review | |
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“Bring Up the Bodies” isn’t nostalgic, exactly, but it’s astringent and purifying, stripping away the cobwebs and varnish of history, the antique formulations and brocaded sentimentality of costume-¬drama novels, so that the English past comes to seem like something vivid, strange and brand new. |
| Catherine Taylor – The Telegraph | |
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[The author] again breathes new life into biographies we thought we knew by heart, enlarged and contemporised to mirror our own gains and losses. |
| Martin Rubin – Los Angeles Times | |
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“Bring Up the Bodies” stands magnificently on its own. |
| Katherine A. Powers – Barnes and Noble | |
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Hilary Mantel has breathed inner life into this seemingly unattractive plotter and legislative grind. |
| Wendy Smith – Washington Post | |
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The pleasures of “Bring Up the Bodies” — and they are abundant, albeit severe — reside in Mantel’s artistic mastery. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/24/3625778/book-review-bring-up-the-bodies.html#storylink=cpy |
| Margaret Atwood – The Guardian | |
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Mantel sometimes overshares, but literary invention does not fail her: she’s as deft and verbally adroit as ever. |
| Frances Wilson – The Observer | |
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Her prose makes no concessions to the disorientated: a moment’s distraction and you have to start the page again. |
| Jennifer Selway – Daily Express | |
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Hurry up with the third novel, Hilary. |
| Philip Hensher – The Independent | |
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Bring up the Bodies has a gripping story of tumbling fury and terror, and for the most part does it with honour and energy. |
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