Books by Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel (1952-2022) was a British writer whose historical novels brought the past alive, winning acclaim from the literary community but also admired by historians. She won the Booker Prize, the UK’s most prestigious fiction prize, twice. Once was for Wolf Hall, the first book in her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, henchman to King Henry VIII. She won it again for the second book in the trilogy, Bring up the Bodies. But she wrote many books over her career—including a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost—and several of her other books have also been highly recommended.
“It’s a wonderful bird’s eye view of the French Revolution, which has been the birthplace of so much in modern life. It zeroes in on the lives and inner feelings of the leading participants, in particular the lives of Maximilien Robespierre and George-Jacques Danton. Mantel has a special intuitive talent for seeking out what makes people do what they do.” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction Set in France
David Lawday, Biographer
The Mirror and the Light
by Hilary Mantel
🏆 Winner of the 2021 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
Award-winning actor Ben Miles narrates the audiobook of The Mirror and The Light. “His voice is as close as can be to the voice that’s in my head as I write,” said Hilary Mantel. He also acted the part of Thomas Cromwell for the Royal Shakespeare Company. According to Mantel: “Ben understands the main character from the inside. His insights from the rehearsal room helped shape the story. He is familiar with how all the characters grow, from first page to last.”
Narrator: Ben Miles
Length: 38 hours and 11 minutes
“We start with an ending—Anne Boleyn’s head has just been severed. Nobody does an execution like Hilary Mantel…In The Mirror and The Light…the pace slowly but inexorably increases as the complications of Cromwell’s ambitions and responsibilities multiply. We know what the end will be, but the tension, the tension!” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction: The 2021 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist
Katharine Grant, Historical Novelist
“This is the book I wish I had written of all the contemporary novels I’ve read. It’s set in the fifties, in a small, rainy Yorkshire town. The local Catholic church is still very old-fashioned, and the priest receives a letter saying someone’s going to come along and shake you up. So he is expecting someone to come along and guide them into the 20th century, and one dark and stormy night there is a knock on the door, and standing on the doorstep is a priest with a neat little dog collar and his black hair combed very tidily. It soon becomes apparent that this is a form of the devil.” Read more...
Sarah Perry, Novelist
Bring up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel
***Winner of the 2012 Booker Prize***
The author almost becomes Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s adviser and key figure in both the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn
“Hilary Mantel breathes life into history. You see the ruthlessness of Tudor society and you see the parallel with politics and power today. She just has an incredible way of making you smell and touch and feel everything. She brings alive the world and the fear: how easily people’s lives were expendable—one small thing and they were gone…In the second one, Anne Boleyn is executed. It’s very good in terms of the politics of it, how Anne Boleyn’s death happens.” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction Set in England
Lesley Thomson, Thriller and Crime Writer
“With Wolf Hall, I was right there in the Tudor era. Thomas Cromwell—or her version of Thomas Cromwell—really came alive for me. You live with him and his family. You have sympathy with him and his life and the way he operated. That’s what I want from books: that they take me into another world and immerse me in it…I forgot that she was a contemporary writer. I could have been reading something that was a journal of the times, it felt so real. It’s so clever how she uses the language. You’re not bogged down with the way they might have talked, but you have the rhythm of the language.” Read more...
The Best Historical Fiction Set in England
Lesley Thomson, Thriller and Crime Writer
Beyond Black
by Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel's comic novel, about a medium living in London's outer suburbs near the M25. In an article in the New Yorker that ranges widely over her writing, critic and author Daniel Mendelsohn said Beyond Black was possibly her "masterpiece."
Interviews where books by Hilary Mantel were recommended
The best books on Architectural Icons, recommended by John Grindrod
John Grindrod, the author of books about the built environment Iconicon and Concretopia, reflects on the ingredients that add up to an architectural icon as he selects five books that explore how buildings might define an era or a particular place in time.
Great Actors Read Great Novels
If you enjoy listening to books as audiobooks, it’s a great time to be alive. From Rosamund Pike narrating Pride and Prejudice, Jeremy Irons reading Lolita to Meryl Streep telling the story of Heartburn, many prominent actors have signed up for performing their favourite books in unabridged versions.
Booker Prize-Winning Novels
The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize was Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, the first novel to win the prize that’s set in space. Below, our list of all the Booker Prize-winning novels of the last twenty years.
The Best Historical Fiction Set in England, recommended by Lesley Thomson
For avid readers always on the lookout for new books to fall in love with, finding a good author and reading every single book they’ve ever written is a not uncommon strategy. British crime novelist Lesley Thomson introduces some of her favourite books, all works of historical fiction set in England.
The best books on Henry VII, recommended by Thomas Penn
He was the Machiavelli of English kings – a chancer and usurper with a highly dubious claim to the throne. But Henry VII ruled for 25 years and founded a dynasty. His biographer, Thomas Penn, tells us how he did it
The Best Historical Novels, recommended by Vanora Bennett
Which are the best historical novels? Bestselling author Vanora Bennett recommends her top five.
The Best Gothic Novels, recommended by Sarah Perry
The Gothic puts flesh on the bones of our darkest fears, British novelist Sarah Perry tells Five Books. Here, she chooses five favourite novels in this ‘irresistible’ genre.
The Best Historical Fiction: The 2021 Walter Scott Prize Shortlist, recommended by Katharine Grant
The Walter Scott Prize seeks to highlight the very best of historical fiction—and in 2021, we find the shortlist dominated by Australian writers. Katharine Grant, the acclaimed novelist and chair of the judges, returns to Five Books to discuss the cream of this year’s crop, and the art of transforming the historical record into a creative exercise.
Favourite Novels of 2020, recommended by Cal Flyn
Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn selects her favourite novels from among those published in 2020: the year of the lockdown, a time when many of us found escapism and solace between the covers of a book. Her own book, Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape, a work of literary nonfiction, is out in January.
Editors’ Picks: Notable New Novels of Early 2020, recommended by Cal Flyn
Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn rounds up the most hotly anticipated new novels of early 2020, including the final instalment in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy and new work from the authors of Dept. of Speculation, Eileen and Station Eleven.
The Best Historical Fiction Set in France, recommended by David Lawday
Historical fiction offers us emotional insight into impactful historic events and an immersive sense of time and place, says David Lawday, the longtime Economist foreign correspondent and author of a new novel set during the Siege of Paris in 1870. Here he highlights five of the best historical novels set in France of centuries past.
The Best Long Novels, recommended by Five Books
If you’re stuck in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, it might be time to finally crack open that one long read you always meant to get around to, but slid down your list of books for whatever reason—not enough time, too many pages. Problem is, there are so many monster doorstoppers, and it can be hard to tell which are worth your time. The Five Books editors weigh in:
