Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel

• A very good book and winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize.
• This is one of those books you can tell you are going to finish after reading the first couple of pages - the quality of writing stands out.
• It tells the story of the rise of Thomas Cromwell  and his relationship with Henry VIII.  The background given on the times is gripping - the intrigues between different courtiers is contemporary.
• A very good read indeed.

 Guardian

Wolf Hall succeeds on its own terms and then some, both as a non-frothy historical novel and as a display of Mantel's extraordinary talent. Lyrically yet cleanly and tightly written, solidly imagined yet filled with spooky resonances, and very funny at times, it's not like much else in contemporary British fiction.

Telegraph

Mantel knows how to build a picture from the parts available, with nothing extraneous and everything layered. Here is Katherine – “as wide as she is high, stitched into gowns so bristling with gemstones that they look as if they are designed less for beauty than to withstand blows from a sword?…

DESPERATION

© Gloria Smith 2010

Quiet desperation is all around

It is quite still and makes no sound

I sit in my uneasy chair and stare

While the walls stare back

Blank expressions, stark and bare

I care no more; a wounded soldier

In an endless war, in a foreign land

No hand is offered to help me stand

I am alone in an empty home

The coal black night pressing in

Like a hidden shame, a forbidden sin

I strain to hear the lonesome sound

Of a distant train on a far off track

As the rain pours down, down, down

Slowly I drown and there is no one here

No one near, and the train speeds on

As I sit still -- and the walls stare back

walk & eat NORTH CYPRUS

A wonderful addition to Sunflower Guides - does what it says on the cover.

Tried and tested.