Reading & Listening

You know what happens when you go to the local library and there's not much good on the shelves?

You end up picking up books like Phillipa Gregory's "The Boleyn Inheritance".

I thought the "Other Boleyn Girl" was a bit overrated and tawdry. It features a bunch of lying schemers with loose morals and a lack of conscience that are loosely based on the historical figures of Henry VIII, his wives and assorted mistresses. So what made me pick up the sequel? Curiosity, I suppose.

This story is told from the points of view of two of Henry's wives, Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard and a despicable lady in waiting, Lady Rochford. Anne of Cleves is the only character I felt even remotely sympathetic for. The other two, not so much.

The book is super soap opera-ish. Lots of scenes of Anne of Cleves being afraid. Katherine Howard having sex with a smelly, 300 pound king, all while longing for Thomas Culpepper. Lots of Lady Rochford making backroom deals with the Duke of Norfolk. Lots of beheadings, or threats of beheadings. It's like a history book for the uneducated, a Da Vinci Code for those who know nothing about the Tudors.

What is really interesting to me is that the Howard family, the real-life scheme-o-matic family that two of Henry's wives, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, came from is still in existence today. The Duke of Norfolk's title still exists. In fact, they're the premier dukedom in the UK.

I guess all that lying and beheading paid off off after all.