Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel

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Yes, I know that Hamilton and Tudor England are not the same thing, but we all know that history is decided by the survivors. Who won? Whoever died last. Who was paid, how much was spent, who wielded the most glorious or secret power, who promised what to where- it does not matter. Thomas Cromwell, in the moment at least, lost. He was *centuries old spoiler alert* beheaded, and spent the last several hundred years painted as a scoundrel and a cheat. Many called him a […]

So Now Get Up

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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Oh, Wolf Hall. So many great and beautiful moments. So many frustrating, stagnating moments. So easy to appreciate. So impossible to judge. Hilary Mantel writes dialogue with a breezy yet deep style. Her characters say a lot by saying so little. If I’m being too paradoxical, it’s because this is a book comfortable with paradox: the lowborn rising to high positions in Tudor England. It’s a stirring tale of politics and a cautionary one about the price of true reform. Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell is comfortable operating in […]

The truth behind the Sexy Tudors

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

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Tudor history has pretty much always been my favourite era of any historical period ever. There’s just so much drama and intrigue and the personalities were so immense, be it Henry VIII or his two daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Back in November, there was a big audiobook sale over at Audible, and I picked up a huge amount of books, this one included. It took me nearly three and a half months of on and off listening to get through this nearly 23 […]

It’s good to be king

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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“I have touched the highest point of all my greatness; And from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting: I shall fall Like a bright exhalation in the evening, And no man see me more.” Oh boy do I need to step up my review writing game, between a ridiculously long illness and studying for the USMLE exams, I haven’t had a lot of spare time to write. To compound the problem, I was tackling a mammoth of a book, […]

Wolf Hall, or the redemption of Thomas Cromwell

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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The tour de Mantel continues with Wolf Hall, about the rise of Thomas Cromwell (no spoilers here, but the fall of Thomas Cromwell comes in another book). We learn a bit about Cromwell through flashbacks – the abuse at the hands of his father, running off to France to become a mercenary, learning about culture and banking in Antwerp, and generally becoming a Renaissance man. He returns to England, becomes a merchant, and eventually ended up working for Cardinal Wolsey, advisor to Henry VIII. Cromwell […]



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