My favourite Mantel by Margaret Atwood, Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright and more

From left; Ben Miles, Sarah Waters, Sara Collins, Margaret Atwood, Anne Enright, Kate Williams, Colm Tóibín. Composite: PR

Hilary Mantel

My favourite Mantel: by Margaret Atwood, Colm Tóibín, Anne Enright and more

From Wolf Hall to Beyond Black and Giving Up The Ghost, cultural figures pick their highlights from a remarkable career

Margaret Atwood, Ben Miles, Colm Tóibín, Sarah Waters , Anne Enright, Sara Collins and Kate Williams

Saturday 22 February 2020

Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies

Margaret Atwood
The Tudors! Who can resist them? Gossip! Rumour! Scandal! Ruffs! Backstabbing! Madrigals! Farthingales! Witchcraft! Lace-on velvet sleeves! Cut-off body parts! More!

We know the plot, or at least its bare outlines, but we seem compelled to relive it in books, films, plays, operas, and television series: and all the more so when viewed through the shrewd, calculating, vengeful, cautious, Machiavellian eyes of master game-player Thomas Cromwell, fixer and hitman to Henry VIII, as rendered in sumptuous, riveting detail by Hilary Mantel in Wolf Hall. If Cromwell had had a phone Mantel could hack, you’d scarcely be brought closer to the inner wheels and cogs of his bloody-minded and bloody-handed machinations.

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid review / An essential new talent

 

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

BOOK OF THE DAY

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid review – an essential new talent

A thrilling millennial take on the 19th-century novel of manners investigates race, friendship and privilege

Sara Collins

Thu 2 January 2020

U

S author Kiley Reid offers a refreshing take on an age-old question: can we connect across barriers of race, gender, wealth and privilege? Emira Tucker, who works in Philadelphia as a babysitter for news anchor Peter and lifestyle guru Alix, takes their toddler, Briar, to an upscale supermarket where suspicions are stirred because she is black and the child is white. The security guard accuses her of kidnapping, and is only appeased when Emira calls Peter. (Peter is “an old white guy”, she declares, “so I’m sure everyone will feel better”.) A lesser novel would have lingered here, in territory that’s painfully familiar from countless viral incidents. But in Reid’s debut the incident heralds a caustically funny skewering of the sort of well-intentioned liberal who congratulates themselves on having black guests at dinner.