Mantel Pieces: The New Book from The Sunday Times Best Selling Author of the Wolf Hall Trilogy

Product Information

She doesn't come across as likeable in her interviews and this book has confirmed to me that she is mean-spirited. Her subjects range far and Robespierre and Danton, the Hite report, Saudi Arabia where she lived for four years in the 1980s, the Bulger case, John Osborne, the Virgin Mary as well as the pop icon Madonna, a brilliant examination of Helen Duncan, Britain’s last witch.

Most are based on books she’s reviewing, chosen because they’re of interest to her for one reason or another. Where Mantel really shines is in her review of historical books like 'The Recockning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe' by Charles Nicholl or 'Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower' by Susan Higginbotham where her expertise in English history promotes the subject admirably. Hawn, Nicholson, Hoffman and Voight would all have at least one Oscar on their mantelpiece by the time the ’80s dawned and were now as much a part of the Hollywood elite as Wayne and Hope were on that April evening. This is a collection of Mantel’s book reviews for The London Review of books, with copies of Mantel’s letters and e-mails serving as chapter breaks between each approximately 10–15-page review.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

Readers new to Mantel or with little interest in non-fictionalised history are going to find this a tough ask. Laura Higgins is a freelance journalist who has had a career within the magazine industry for twenty years.

Mantel was the winner of the Hawthornden Prize, and her reviews and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books.

For those suffering from Tudor withdrawal, there are pieces on Jane Boleyn, Charles Brandon, and Margaret Pole. There is a blue plaque on the mantelpiece commemorating Lydon, and is the only evidence of the musician living here. To style your mantel, consider a vintage clock, scented candles with crackling wicks, and blooming foliage to create a shelf space full of nostalgia. Another, the frank depiction of her horrific experience in the hospital after surgery, felt like a public service announcement wrapped in a horror story. I'd say this is very much a collection for Mantel fans and for those who loved her Wolf Hall trilogy and her earlier epic, A Place of Greater Safety, about the architects of the French Revolution.

There are also more personal pieces, dissecting (almost literally) her own travails with undiagnosed illness and savage surgery, and growing up with a fractured family and faith. We know that in this film we are seeing the real Madonna - for we know from her other films that she cannot act”.

It’s also important to take into account whether you have a functioning fire, taking care not to include anything flammable in your fireplace mantel ideas.Laura worked for over a decade on Your Home magazine where she was Lifestyle Editor, writing about everything from interiors and decorating to household advice, kitchen appliances and recipes.