Staff pick: Philippa Gregory's "White princess"

This book can be found here.

I found this book to be detailed, compelling, thought-provoking and shocking. 

It is an historical romance, with so much detail given to the time period and the political and economical struggles at the time that I had to rethink what I knew of the English Monarch during the Tudor reign. The story is told from the female protagonist’s point of view and it sheds light on the royal family and the struggles of a person perceived as lesser or of little value other than to bear a male heir. The woman in this story is a unique and untold hero who faces real villainy.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves historical novels, a strong female protagonist; stories revolving around historical Royalty; or, who is interested in learning an in-depth account of a story already told a thousand times before.

-- K

Here are other formats you can borrow of Gregory's book (including a television series).

It is also book five (5) in Gregory's Cousin's war series; but it is not necessary to read them in order.

Layla AlAmmar’s “The pact we made”

This book can be found here.

This debut novel follows the character Dahlia as a woman living in Kuwait that straddles both modernity and traditional cultural values in her life. This is a very strong theme within the novel as Dahlia is almost thirty; which is the cut-off point for being a worthwhile wife and bride for a man to choose.

This can be seen within the title, which refers to the fact that when young, Dahlia and her two friends all made a pact to be married by twenty-seven. This itself; though Dahlia wanted out of the pact, shows the pressures of women and their roles even in modern Kuwait that Dahlia is expected to live up to.

So, this novel is all about self-discovery, self-identity and #metoo; but also the trials of just existing within society. A lot of the characters tend to struggle with life and its choices (most humans could); whether from Kuwait or not. The added layer of this novel? AlAmmar’s Kuwaiti traditional roles and ways of thinking adds dimension and struggle that I as a Westerner may not have ever encountered if in similar situations. This made parts of the novel much more difficult for me to read as I struggled with such traditional views; which Dahlia seemed to have to manoeuvre through as well.

Saying that; the plot is slow-going. This is about Dahlia’s progression through this almost “final” year of her life (or the beginning of her new one if it works out … not telling you though). It means that even for the secondary characters there is a sense of claustrophobia to their lives that can’t be escaped (possibly) and this can also slow the book down. 

Character is the driving force of the novel. It is mostly all about Dahlia and her processes and this, again, becomes rather claustrophobic. This is because it is first-person and so her voice and thoughts become sometimes a little overpowering outside of the story. Whilst this lends itself to strengthen a character trying to cope with trauma, some of it may push readers to the side.

In truth, this could be another layer to the novel: everyone is selfish and focussed ultimately on their own thoughts, goals and issues and trying to get out of, or through, them (generally). This would play well for a young adult audience, even with Dahlia almost pushing thirty (given the traditional values of the family in this novel, she is treated like a child and so definitely still fits). However, it might be a tough read, not in terms of language (though Arabic is used at times – well too, I might add), but because of Dahlia’s consuming thoughts. However, overall, the insight into the culture and an individual trying to balance and find their place in it was very well done.

Links for you:

https://www.readingwomenpodcast.com/blog/2020/01/10/qa-layla-alammar

Okay, so I am starting with an interview by AlAmmar with this blog “Reading women”. Probably a little controversial connecting between blogs, but this gives insight into AlAmmar’s writing processes.

Read-a-likes in the Library:

How we disappeared

Jing-Jing Lee

Read-a-likes in cloudLibrary:

Exit West

Mohsin Hamid

Staff pick: Hilary Mantel's "Mirror and the light"

This book can be found here.

This is the final instalment of her celebrated trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell, who rose to be Lord Privy Seal to King Henry VIII of England, basically running the government of the realm. He helped solve the King’s Great Problem of how to divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn in the first two books. Now there is a third Queen hoping to deliver the much-anticipated son and heir to carry on the Tudor dynasty. History tells us that three more Queens will await their fate after this Queen. Remember the rhyme:

Divorced, beheaded, died

Divorced, beheaded, survived.

Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour

Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard, Katherine Parr.

The earlier books in the trilogy, "Wolf Hall" and "Bring up the bodies", each won the Mann Booker Prize in 2009 and 2012, respectively. They were worthy winners. We won’t know until later in the year if this third book will be nominated, I will be surprised if it isn’t. Her style in these books is to create a vast, much peopled canvas, to follow the diverse nobles and the few commoners who shaped events, to have an overarching commentary from Thomas and to range back and forth in time. This enables her to bring forward incidents that developed his character, talents, networks and alliances as they are relevant to the current action. I found the back and forth in time a little bit jarring in Wolf Hall; it seemed much smoother in the next two, or perhaps the scene had been set and I had adjusted to her style.

Thomas Cromwell was the son of a brewer, from a poor part of London, near to the bottom of the social hierarchy. As a child, he worked in the kitchens of great houses. He went to the Netherlands and Italy, working with merchants and understanding finance. Double entry bookkeeping had been invented to keep the accounts of the great Italian merchant companies and printing was underway and books were becoming available to the rising merchant class as well as nobles and Church dignitaries. Whilst in Italy, he acquires a second-hand book.  This is one example of Mantel’s research. She knows the printer/publishers and their printer’s marks or devices, giving this book the mark of the dolphin and anchor of a famous Venetian printer: https://nyamcenterforhistory.org/2018/05/07/makers-mark-a-look-at-early-modern-printers-devices/. This is one small detail and it is matched by her careful attention to all aspects of Cromwell’s life and of English life during Tudor times.

When Cromwell comes back to England, he works for Cardinal Wolsey, then high in Henry’s favour. It is a great learning ground for a man who does appear to have been exceptionally able, much to the chagrin of the various nobles who envy his rise to power and who believe that lesser people in the social strata just are less able. But if the head that wears the crown is uneasy, it is more dangerous to be close enough to the King to know his secrets and weaknesses, and fatal not to be able to give him what he wants. Cromwell rises further on Wolsey’s fall and in turn will fall himself.

I normally like to race through a book to find out how the story develops but this is a familiar story to me as the Tudor period is one in which I have a great interest. I found I took this book at a more leisurely pace and there is much detail to digest. Knowing his story, I tended to linger, to enjoy the Tudor milieu, to delay the inevitable void. No more will there be a volume to look forward to. I might have to start again at the beginning and re-read the three of them.

It is long at 875 pages, but it is a pleasure to read, full of very readable detail about clothes, food, court etiquette etc. Mantel’s prose soars on the page, transporting you to Cromwell’s urban childhood in Putney; to the spring gardens of the great houses; to the bloody work of the butchers that provide the vast quantities of game, beef, lamb and pork to the great house tables; to the political machinations of the great families, and to the dreams and fancies of Princess/Lady Mary who was raised and lowered by their father with every passing marriage. Elizabeth, her half-sister was so much younger that she does not figure as much in the story, although equally affected by the succession uncertainties. If Cromwell was an intelligent, hardworking man able to conceptualise and keep track of all the economic, religious and political activity in the kingdom, he is surely matched by his creator in fiction. She illuminates her subject in every chapter.

Henry gives Cromwell a vacant position in the Order of the Garter, the highest award for the nobility to aspire to, some of whom are not impressed that they must share the honour with a commoner. But it is not politic to grumble at the King’s decisions. New people are appointed as vacancies arise. There are two vacant places but one is being held for the Royal child currently kicking in Queen Jane’s womb. On the night before he is invested with the Order, Cromwell goes to bed early…

He needs a space in which he can watch the future shaping itself, as dusk steals over the river and the park, smudges the forms of ancient trees: there are nightingales in the copses, but we will not hear them again this year. Tomorrow, all eyes will turn, not to the Garter stall he fills, but to the vacancy, where a prince as yet unborn reaches for the statute book, and bows his blind head in its caul. Why does the future feel so much like the past, the uncanny clammy touch of it, the rustle of bridal sheet or shroud, the crackle of fire in a shuttered room? Like breath misting glass, like the nightingale’s trace on the air, like a wreath of incense, like vapour, like water, like scampering feet and laughter in the dark….furiously he wills himself to sleep. But he is tired of trying to wake up different. In stories there are folk who, observed at dawn or dusk in some open, watery space, are seen to flit and twist in the air like spirits, or fledge leather wings through their flesh. Yet he is no such wizard. He is not a snake who can slip his skin. He is what the mirror makes, when it assembles him each day: Jolly Tom from Putney. Unless you have a better idea?      -- pp 504-5

If you want an impartial consideration of this book you will have to seek that elsewhere. I love the period, I love English history (it is my heritage) and I love this book. It’s not for everyone, but it is definitely for me. I hope it is for you, too!

For further reading, other worthy historical novelists dealing with the period include Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir.

-- Wendy