Books recently read

My reading schedule is a bit higgledy piggledy but I have recently finished three unrelated books of various sizes. One was George Orwell's first novel Burmese Days which is a fine novel, despite what Orwell came to think, and an unsentimental insight into English attitudes in the 1920s as the British Raj began to wind down. The more Orwell I read the more I admire his skill. The other two books are non-fiction. Victorians Undone is a large roving thing by the journalist Kathryn Hughes. With chapters on Darwin's beard and George Eliot's hand it is an unusual approach to history but a fascinating read. Some will want to avoid the book because of some of the subject material it gets into and the very occasional lapse of judgement in the expressions used. Otherwise it is well written, informative and thought provoking. The third and final one to mention is a little SPCK hardback by Tudor historian John Guy. The first half is excellent but it is supplemented in the second half with discussions of More's impact down the years, including the fascinating story of how he was made saint and how first Robert Bolt and then Hilary Mantel got hold of the character and shaped him to their own purposes. Really worth a read.