Knight takes Queen, Queen takes Pawn...

Who would've thought it, finishing two books in one week!

I've just finished 'The Virgin's Lover' by popular historical novelist Philippa Gregory.  This is the fourth book of hers I've read, the others being 'A Respectable Trade', 'The Queen's Fool' and (the one she'll probably always be remembered for) 'The Other Boleyn Girl'.

'The Virgin's Lover' tells the story of the illicit love affair between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley in the early years of her reign.  Caught in the middle are Dudley's unfortunate wife, Amy, and the arch-politician William Cecil.

'The Virgin's Lover' by
Philippa Gregory
(HarperCollins, 2005)

Normally, I find Gregory's books hard to get into, but once I'm a few chapters in, I can't put them down.  On this occasion, however, I got into the book straight away... but got a bit bored in the middle.  I really don't like pure historical romance and what felt like chapter after chapter of secret assignations became a bit tiresome after a while.  Gregory's books are at their best when they balance personal and political plots and this is quite a narrow story without a lot of politics in it.  When the court intrigue began to develop towards the end of the book, I began to enjoy it much more.

Elizabeth and Robert are quite hard to get to grips with.  Elizabeth I's story has been told so many times and in so many ways, it's quite difficult to deal with her as a bit of a sap who puts her lust before her belief in her right to rule.  It seems a bit out of character considering how hard she fought for the throne in the first place for her to risk handing it all over to an obvious prat like Dudley.  Then again, maybe once she was finally in power, she almost frightened herself and began to doubt her ability, perhaps regressing until she came to terms with it and regained her confidence.  Or maybe I just find it hard to see what she saw in him!

Now, I'm not a violent person, but I did spend most of the book hoping someone would slap Dudley.  Preferably Elizabeth.  And preferably with a spade.  In fact, the more I think about it, this story wasn't really helped by the fact that the two leads were terribly aggravating for the most part!  Amy was arguably also quite annoying, but on the whole I found I had a lot of sympathy for her and, although I knew things couldn't turn out well for her, I somehow hoped she would find some sort of happiness.

As always, Gregory's great strength is her ability to create an incredible sense of time and place.  It's wonderful to be able to immerse yourself in a different context at the end of a hard day and forget all about the real world for a while.  Thank you, Ms Gregory!

On the whole, I think this was a good book, if a slightly thin story, and well told.  In the hands of a lesser writer, the three leads could have become intolerable, so it's a credit to Gregory that they don't.  But because there isn't a very meaty story here, I think this is perhaps more of a holiday read than her other stories.

I have a copy of Jean Plaidy's 'Lord Robert' on my shelf as well, so I will be interested to see how the two books compare.  I think that will be for a later date, though, time for a change now I think!

In the Know...

"[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know.  We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.  But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.”

Donald Rumsfeld, then United States Secretary of Defense , 2002

This morning I finished 'The QI Book of General Ignorance: The Noticeably Stouter Edition' by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson and I'm glad to say that I now have more knowns than unknown unknowns!

'The QI Book of General Ignorance' is a book of facts drawn from the BBC TV panel show QI.  For those of you not familiar with it, 'QI' stands for 'Quite Interesting' and all the information included on the programme is exactly that - catnip for the curious!

The entries cover a very wide range of subjects, including history, zoology, physics, medicine, geography, anthropology, and all debunk 'facts' that you thought you knew already.  Despite this, the tone remains fun and interesting when it could easily have slipped into superior and pedantic.

'The QI Book of General
Ignorance' by John Lloyd
and John Mitchinson
(2006, Faber and Faber)
NB. I read the extended
ebook version.

Questions answered include 'What did the Chinese invent?', 'How do lemmings die?', 'How many nostrils have you got?', 'Who introduced tobacco and potatoes to England?', 'Who invented the telephone?', 'What were Nelson's last words?', 'What's the densest element?', 'How many wives did Henry VIII have?', 'How many toes has a two-toed sloth?', 'What colour is water?', 'What happened to most English witches?', 'Who lives in igloos?', 'What was Mozart's middle name?', 'What's the sport of kings?' and 'What were Cinderella's slippers made from?'.  If you're the curious sort and think you know the answer to any of these already, I suggest you read this book!

The greatest advantage of 'The QI Book of General Ignorance' is that it's very easy to dip in and out of.  I've found myself opening it when I know I have an odd ten minutes because I'm in a waiting room or have a bit left of my lunch break or someone was running a bit late and due to pick me up.  In the nicest possible way, this would make it a great 'toilet book', although readers may get carried away and forget what they're actually there for!

Much like QI itself, and it's radio equivalent 'The Museum of Curiosity' (both highly recommended), this is a book for those interested in the world around them.  Light hearted, charming and knowledgeable, I'd like to think this is a bit like having Stephen Fry on your book shelf!

I'm about half way through Philippa Gregory's 'The Virgin's Lover', so I hope to be back soon with my thoughts on that.  So long as I don't get distracted by something else quite interesting of course!