by Tracy Borman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2017
A mostly entertaining mixture of esoteric social history and well-known details of the personal lives of Tudor monarchs.
Amusing, well-researched biographies of rulers from Henry VII to Elizabeth I, focused on how they were born, dressed, ate, washed, slept, played, and died.
For readers anticipating salacious surprises, Borman (The Story of the Tower of London, 2015, etc.), joint chief curator of the Historic Royal Palaces and chief executive of the Heritage Education Trust, explains that they were rarely alone, so tales of clandestine royal trysts that have come down were mostly fictional, but she does not ignore them. Privacy, a later concept, barely touched the Tudors. “Even in their most private moments,” writes the author, “they were accompanied by a servant specifically appointed for the task.” Entering a typical palace, one passed through a public great chamber into a presence chamber (throne room), where the ruler dined in state, received visitors, and chaired council meetings, and then to the privy chamber, which was both lodging and the name of the organization that governed them. It was not very private, and every royal activity, from dining to preparing the royal bed to dressing the royal person in the morning, was subject to formal ceremony. Thus, Tudor monarchs did not go to the bathroom; the bathroom came to them, led by the groom of the stool, who managed a portable privy and attended his master when he used it. An important official, he supervised the other grooms and oversaw items in daily use such as jewels, plates, linens, and the Privy Purse. Borman delivers plenty of similar tidbits on 16th-century diet, hygiene, medicine, and sport à la Ian Mortimer’s A Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England (2013). She also includes familiar (perhaps too-familiar) details of royal private lives—e.g., Henry VIII’s pursuit of wives, Elizabeth’s nonpursuit of husbands.
A mostly entertaining mixture of esoteric social history and well-known details of the personal lives of Tudor monarchs.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2599-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
HISTORY | MODERN | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
Share your opinion of this book
More by Tracy Borman
BOOK REVIEW
by Tracy Borman
BOOK REVIEW
by Tracy Borman
BOOK REVIEW
by Tracy Borman
by Tom Clavin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
More by Tom Clavin
BOOK REVIEW
by Tom Clavin
BOOK REVIEW
by Tom Clavin
BOOK REVIEW
by Bob Drury & Tom Clavin
by Bonnie Tsui ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Share your opinion of this book
More by Bonnie Tsui
BOOK REVIEW
by Bonnie Tsui ; illustrated by Sophie Diao
BOOK REVIEW
by Bonnie Tsui
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.