Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
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Another magnificent Mantel
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The Mirror and the Light
by Hilary Mantel
Fourth Estate, £25
WITH The Mirror and the Light, Hilary Mantel concludes her trilogy of novels exploring both the life of Thomas Cromwell and Tudor politics.
It takes Cromwell from the height of his powers in 1536, when he was awarded the Order of the Garter by Henry VIII and extensive lands across the country, to the executioner’s block in the summer of 1540.
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PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
ANDY HEDGECOCK is astonished by a portrait of contemporary Greece, complete with political protest, organised crime and people trafficking, told from the point of view of — wait for it — runaway poultry
GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son