Just Finished - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Finishing this *ahem* Man Booker Prize Winner has made me happy. Firstly, it was a bloody good book, which dragged me in from the word go. Secondly, it is HUGE. I was given the hardback edition for Christmas and it weighs a tonne. The Man Bag has struggled and my thigh is bruised where its vicious corner bounces against my leg. Being bigger than your average book, it's taken me around a month to finish, but it was worth it - worth the time, the effort and the physical pain .

It follows the life of Thomas Cromwell, who was an adviser to Henry VIII. The Tudors are a dynasty I studied at school, and I've always found their reign an interesting period. It was a time of massive political upheaval and in England, among other places, of previously unimaginable religious change too. With the basic knowledge I have, I had heard of quite a few of the characters before, but I've been used to seeing them depicted very differently. For example, I went to a Roman Catholic secondary school where there were four form groups in each year, each named after an English Martyr. Thomas More and John Fisher were among these- chosen for their extraordinary virtue and unwavering faith, and also crop up in Wolf Hall. In the book you're shown events from a dramatically different angle; More especially becomes a particularly unlikable character, while Cromwell and Cardinal Wolsey are painted in an entirely different, favourable light - which, I believe, is the opposite to what they normally receive.

While the history of the time is well-known, the viewpoint from which it's witnessed here is completely different to anything I've read before, and had me hooked from the beginning. Mantel takes a story that has been told a hundred times before, but makes you appreciate the characters as people, with clear personalities, rather than cardboard cut-out historical figures. She takes the history, dusts it down and delivers it in a way that entertains throughout. Possibly my favourite this year...