Tuesday 5 February 2013

Reading history again

Can you believe the goodreads website shows 442 popular books about Richard III ? I had a thought that I ought to list a few,  given that he is currently in our thoughts, but it seems there really are too many for me to mention.  
A quick scan of the first couple of pages of the list shows how fascinated historical writers have been with his character and especially  the as yet unsolved  mystery of whether or not he did despatch the young princes in the tower. I'm not sure the recent discovery of his bones will shed any more light on this mystery, but they certainly reveal that he met a violent end himself.
Any library staff with an eye on the news should be pulling as many of these books from their shelves as possible and displaying them for people to see easily. Our Pages Ago project of 2 years ago which promoted historical reading of all sorts, showed clearly that people loved the opportunity to discover history interpreted through the eyes of all sorts of writers.

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