Bring Up the Bodies
A Novel
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4.4 • 779 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn.
The basis for the TV show on BBC and PBS Masterpiece starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell.
Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice.
At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?
Named a top 10 Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When last we saw Thomas Cromwell, hero of Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winning Wolf Hall, he'd successfully moved emperors, queens, courtiers, the pope, and Thomas More to secure a divorce and a new, younger queen for his patron, Henry the VIII. Now, in the second book of a planned trilogy, Cromwell, older, tired, with more titles and power, has to get Henry out of another heirless marriage. The historical facts are known: this is not about what happens, but about how. And armed with street smarts, vast experience and connections, a ferociously good memory, and a patient taste for revenge, Mantel's Cromwell is a master of how. Like its predecessor, the book is written in the present tense, rare for a historical novel. But the choice makes the events unfold before us: one wrong move and all could be lost. Also repeated is Mantel's idiosyncratic use of "he:" regardless of the rules of grammar, rest assured "he" is always Cromwell. By this second volume, however, Mantel has taught us how to read her, and seeing Cromwell manipulate and outsmart the nobles who look down on him, while moving between his well-managed domestic arrangements and the murky world of accusations and counteraccusations is pure pleasure. Cromwell may, as we learn in the first volume, look "like a murderer," but he's mighty good company.
Customer Reviews
Format corrected
An earlier comment says the family trees at the beginning of the book are illegible. That problem seems to have been corrected.
Bring up the bodies
This is a wonderful novel but I regret purchasing it as an iBook. The introduction includes a series of family trees which have not been formatted for the iPad and are therefore essentially illegible. The same charts are very easy to read in the hardcover version of the book.
The publisher did a disservice to readers and the author by not spending the time to properly format the book for the iPad.
Brilliant
Luminous; breathtaking story-telling, and even better than the first part of the trilogy. I loved it!!