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Showing posts with label Wolf Hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wolf Hall. Show all posts

Saturday, April 23, 2016

The joy of being greeted by your student on World Book Day!

I was delighted to receive this e-mail from Sharanya Shivakumar (Class of 2017) this morning:


Almost immediately I sent her my reply:

Happy World Book Day to you too, Sharanya. I can't tell you how happy I am to receive this e-mail from you. :-)

Of course, I have read Kane and Abel. It was first published in 1979, so I think I must have picked it up in my final year of college. I'm sure I liked it, because I was a huge Archer fan at the time, but I have read a few thousand books since, so I am not sure now exactly what I felt when I put it down for the last time.

You finished it in three days? Wow! I am impressed.

My favourite book? Rabid book-lovers can never have a favourite book. I can, if I put my mind to it, name a few hundred which I absolutely enjoyed reading. :-)

Right now I'm re-reading Wolf Hall. I first read it a few years ago (and even purchased a copy for the college library) and I thought it was a magnificent portrayal of Thomas Cromwell, the man who worked behind the scenes for Henry VIII (he of the six-wives fame!). I love books dealing with history  fiction as well as non-fiction  and I am re-reading this one because my wife and I have been watching The Tudors on Netflix.


Wolf Hall has been made into a TV mini-series. Sushant has downloaded it for me and I'm looking forward to watching the book come alive on the small screen.

At the moment, I am on Page 463  only about 200 pages to go. After I am done, I'm going to re-read the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. (Both books are so, so good, author Hilary Mantel was honoured with the Booker Prize. She is the first woman and the first living British author to win the prestigious literary prize twice.) And now I'm waiting for the last book in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light. I am hoping it will be published this year.

Oh-oh. When I get started on reading and books, I don't seem to stop, right? :-) *Stops typing now*

I am bcc'ing this to your classmates for their edification. :-)

Cheers,

RP
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ALSO READ: Good readers make good media professionals

Friday, October 26, 2012

A five-star book, all the way


A worthy winner of the Man Booker Prize. A worthy sequel to a Booker winner (Wolf Hall, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading two years ago). And the reason I'm now reading The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory, on my Kindle Fire. And the reason I also want to read The Wives of Henry VIII, by Antonia Fraser.