Devourer of Books

I just found a very interesting essay/statement on Phillipa Gregory’s website about the fact and fiction in her novels about the Boleyns, the Howards, and the Tudors. She includes some of her research as well as her process. It is quite an interesting perusal for anyone who has read her books.

Queens of England by Norah Lofts is a comprehensive overview of every Queen of England beginning with the wife of William the Conqueror and going through Queen Elizabeth II. It was a remarkably easy read, considering it comprises about 900 years of English royal history. It was also a very engaging read, I learned about [...]

Tonight I dragged my fiance to see The Other Boleyn Girl, the movie based on the book of the same name by Philippa Gregory. Here’s the short, non-spoiler version of the review: it is entertaining. If you like historical fiction, but know little to nothing about this time period, other than the fact that Anne [...]

The New York Times published their review of The Other Boleyn Girl, the movie based on Philippa Gregory’s historical fiction novel of the same name.  I very much enjoyed the book, despite a few historical inaccuracies – for instance, Mary wasn’t just the sweet girl, caught up in her family’s scheming as in the book, [...]

For the past two years or so about 60% of what I have been reading has been historical fiction (the other 40% has been made up of best-seller list-type fiction, historical non-fiction, and issue-based non-fiction, such as the Omnivore’s Dilemma, and some of my old favorites). It all started with a “hey, why not” [...]