Looking Back - Book Of The Year

If I had to nominate a single tome as my book of 2010 it would have to be Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, her Booker-winning novel about that wily young/old fox Thomas Cromwell. I started to read it on the plane going to England, finishing it about two weeks later, having deliberately taken it as slowly as possible just to savour its delights. Finally the ins and outs of the tyrant Henry's reign made sense.

And what a creation her Cromwell is! A convincingly Tudor man (I almost write gentleman, but he isn't - well not in Tudor terms) allied to an almost modern sensibility, the result of his being just about as self-made as it's possible a man might be. I think that Ms Mantel is more than a little in love with him herself, and no wonder. Her Thomas More is equally convincing - convincingly repulsive. I felt an urgent need to re-read Ackroyd's biography, and the saint's own Utopia and A Dialogue of Comfort, just to check how accurate our Booker-winner is. I suspect she's spot-on and I need to seriously reconsider just about every one of my original opinions.

The marvelous thing is that whilst Wolf Hall is a distinctly literary read, being literate in the very best sense, it's also easy to see it as a genuinely popular novel. It's simply a great read. And there's going to be a sequel! Yowza!!!