My suggestions for Xmas holiday reading (warning: really quite royal)
Like me, you may well currently be stockpiling some nice new books to read over the Christmas holidays, so here are some suggestions.
I’ve read and enjoyed each of these over the last few months. Yes, the list has an eccentrically royal flavour because I’ve been working on a TV project about the history of the monarchy, and have had my nose to the grindstone.
But there are some novels lower down.
- Chris Skidmore, Edward VI, The Lost King of England
Fullest and most modern trade bio of a little boy who’s often underestimated
- Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor, England’s First Queen
Pleasantly revisionist account, may well change your mind about poor old Mary!
- Charles Carlton, Charles I, The Personal Monarch
Enjoyed reading his ‘psychological’ take while at college, still stands the test of time
- Anne Somerset, Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion
The fullest, latest word on Anne. Definitive
- Kate Williams, Becoming Queen
Fun romp through early lives of Princesses Charlotte and Victoria
Clever new angle on Victoria’s later reign
- Matthew Dennison, The Last Princess (about Victoria’s daughter Beatrice)
Again, lots of mourning, really makes you pity Victoria’s kids
- Jane Ridley, Bertie, A Life of Edward VII
As revisionist as the subject allows, good access to sources, good fun too!
- Miranda Carter, Three Emperors
Ambitious, covers lots of ground, v. readable (for me, the same author’s book on Anthony Blunt was a brilliant holiday read the year it came out)
- Kenneth Rose, King George V
Thorough. Even better is David Cannadine’s essay on it in London Review of Books
- Philip Ziegler, King Edward VIII
A Rolls-Royce biographer. This saw me through an Xmas holiday some years ago
- Robert Hardman, Our Queen
A light read but with some really unexpected insights
- Andrew Marr, The Diamond Queen
Absolutely required reading this year
- David Starkey, Monarchy
Concise, incisive re-cap of the theoretical background to monarchy
I get my suggestions for novel-reading by following Daisy Goodwin on Twitter. Nearly everything she recommends goes straight onto my Kindle and I’ve never yet been disappointed.
- Ian McEwan, Sweet Tooth
I sort-of guessed that we had an unreliable narrator, but still a great denouement
- Harriet Lane, Alys, Always
Lapped this up, clever, malicious, sharp, brilliant
- Maggie Shipstead, Seating Arrangements
Made me want to go to Martha’s Vineyard
- Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
Tailed off a bit towards the end but what a concept!
