A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel

It’s just the type of impressive looking doorstop the show-off in me loves to have on my bookshelf, in other words. Size-wise, ‘A Place of Greater Safety’ is not for the faint hearted – it’s a positively intimidating 850 pages. I had no idea Hilary Mantel had done a book on the French Revolution but I love her writing and immediately bought a copy. Among the suggestions was ‘A Place of Greater Safety’. It’s a bit similar to giving someone a really well-chosen birthday present.Īnyway, I requested a good book on said topic and was richly rewarded. Setting someone off on a journey with a book you love is a really nice feeling. As a sometime recommender myself, I can attest to this. It’s simply a huge collection of well-read book lovers who get great joy out of recommending other people the perfect book. I can’t believe it took me so long to discover it. The thread ‘r/suggestmeabook’ is my favourite new toy. Naturally I wasn’t planning on reading any dry textbookish affairs, so I put out a siren call on Reddit. Up til now I’d only read her Wolf Hall books, but for some reason I now forget, I wanted to understand a bit more about the French Revolution. Luckily I’ve had Hilary Mantel by my side over the last few weeks. But you try finding a stock image of Paris without it (or the Eiffel tower, which was also yet to be built.) A place of greater safety And what better time to return to writing than getting notified that I have to self-isolate for ten days? Yes, OK, technically the Arc du Triomphe didn’t exist yet at the time of the novel. This year I’m reading whatever I want, because let’s be honest, the world is mad enough right now without setting myself arbitrary deadlines.įortunately, that has lead to be discovering some truly wonderful reads, which I can’t wait to share with you. As part of the above promise-to-self, I also gave myself the year off from covering the Man Bookers. So, instead of writing the blog, I’ve been reading. I wanted to keep it as something I did for fun, not out of a sense of obligation. Even when it comes to something I really love doing, I don’t always have the mental energy for it.

If there’s one thing I promised myself this year, it was that I wouldn’t put any more pressure on myself than I had to. It’s nice to be back! Since March, I’ve taken a bit of time off from the blog.

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel