The Republic of Thieves (2013): Scott Lynch

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★★★

The Gentleman Bastards: Book III

Having devoured The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas Under Red Skies over the summer, I was impatiently waiting for this third book in Scott Lynch’s splendid series. The first two novels dazzled me with their twisting plots-upon-plots, their unusually rich settings and their sheer dexterity. This third book, however, is a different beast both in structure and in atmosphere; and I’m not entirely sure that I like the change (when an author has proven to be extremely good, I become especially demanding).

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Elizabeth I & Her People (2013-14)

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The Darnley Portrait of Elizabeth I

(National Portrait Gallery, London, until 5 January 2014)

The National Portrait Gallery’s autumn exhibition is the most recent in a long line of Tudor and Stuart shows in London over the last eighteen months. It’s much smaller than most of the others: a tasting menu compared to the banquet of the Royal Collection’s In Fine Style or the sprawling buffet of the V&A’s Treasures of the Royal Courts. Its purpose is to look at the social stratification of Elizabethan England and how luxury goods such as portraits, books and fine clothing were becoming increasingly available to the lower classes – merchants, clerics, writers and gentry – as well as to royalty and nobility.

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Artists on Film: Caravaggio (2007)

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Caravaggio

★★★

(directed by Angelo Longoni for Italian TV, 2007)

Considering my interest in the Old Masters, my affection for swordsmen, and my possible weakness for doomed heroes, it’s hardly surprising that I have a soft spot for Caravaggio. One of the first exhibitions I saw as a teenager was The Genius of Rome, a feast of the Caravaggisti held at the Royal Academy in 2001, and from that moment I was captivated by the violent swagger of the period.

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Much Ado About Nothing (1598/99): William Shakespeare

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Much Ado About Nothing: William Shakespeare

★★★

(directed by Mark Rylance, The Old Vic, London, until 30 November)

Much Ado About Nothing is the closest that Shakespeare came to writing a screwball comedy and I love it dearly, mainly for the barbed word-play. I’ve seen several versions (my favourite is still the sun-drenched Kenneth Branagh film) and I was very interested by the idea behind Mark Rylance’s new adaptation at the Old Vic. Here Beatrice and Benedick are played respectively by Vanessa Redgrave (76) and James Earl Jones (82): two older people who, after watching their young friends fall in love, are finally persuaded to end their age-old skirmishing and embrace their affection for one another before it’s too late. I thought it was a marvellous take on the play – but unfortunately the production doesn’t live up to the brilliance of this concept. It was rather disappointing because, with such a director and such actors, it should have been a cast-iron success.

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The King in the North (2005): Max Adams

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★★★★★

The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria

Published at the end of August, this book came to my attention as a Kindle recommendation from Amazon. It was a bit of a leap into the dark. I hadn’t come across Max Adams before; I hadn’t heard of the publisher; and I had no idea who Oswald of Northumbria was. No one else on LibraryThing owned the book at the time. But the opening paragraph captivated me and I decided to take the plunge.

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Elizabeth and her German Garden (1898): Elizabeth von Arnim

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★★★★

After discovering Elizabeth von Arnim* through The Enchanted April, I was keen to read some more of her work and the natural next step was to find a copy of this book: her first novel, published in 1898. It has been a complete joy to read. Presented in the form of a diary by the semi-autobiographical Elizabeth, it takes the reader through the span of a year in her beloved garden in Northern Germany, following her trials and errors in planting and her passionate appreciation of the way every season affects her little corner of the earth.

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Merivel (2013): Rose Tremain

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★★★½

A Man of His Time

The last time we saw Sir Robert Merivel, in the closing pages of Rose Tremain’s Restoration, he had achieved everything he had once desired: a comfortable home of his own; his infant daughter Margaret in his arms; and an assurance of King Charles II’s favour. Twenty five years after the publication of that novel, Tremain invites us to once again join forces with her neurotic, gifted but all-too-easily-distracted physician (for whom only sixteen years have passed) and to take a glimpse at what his life has become in the year 1683.

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Helen of Troy (2006): Margaret George

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© Alison Kaufman

★★

Although I bought this more than a year ago, I’ve only just got round to reading it, mainly because Helen recently reviewed another of Margaret George’s books, Elizabeth I. Remembering that I had this novel on my shelf, I decided it was time to take the plunge (at 747 pages long, it’s quite a commitment). It’s the first of George’s books that I’ve read, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I’m sorry to say that it doesn’t quite match up to Helen’s report on Elizabeth. While I could see that a lot of research had gone into it, it never developed the alluring sparkle and epic grandeur that I’d hoped for from the woman whose face launched a thousand ships.

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