Great

As long as you know who David Mitchell is and are comfortable with his views on contemporary issues, you are on safe ground. Oh, and you need to be OK with swearing too. It's not every history book that comes with an "explicit lyrics" label or with spoilers about the last James Bond film, but this one does. It also regularly critiques the self-indulgent habit of historians to reframe things with little or no evidence to support them; "maybe Shakespeare didn't write the plays". "maybe Richard III wasn't such a bad king" etc. Meanwhile, he consigns the likes of "killed with a red hot poker to the bum" and "burnt the cakes" to the apocryphal skip. Royal history was a gap in my knowledge that I'd been trying to fill, so I bought this book the second I knew it existed. It did its job admirably. I can't claim to remember everything I've heard, especially not from the 100 Years' War section, but I bet I remember a lot more from this format than I would have done from something less exuberant.

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15 people found this helpful

Funny. But with real history!

David Mitchell is a really good historian! I’d always suspected that he was, but this book is full of wise observations on the historical process and on historiography itself. It also made me laugh out loud. There is more good historical sense here than in most academic studies. Learning through laughter. It works. Having Mitchell narrate the book was an added bonus. More of this please DM!

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8 people found this helpful

So much educational fun

It's "This sceptered Isle" for the 21st century. Brilliant, funny, sweary (great), and informative. History as it should be. Do yourself a favour, have a llisten.

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1 person found this helpful

Flipping Brilliant

This book is bloody brilliant!! The humour is great, the history is interesting and the whole book filled me with warmth and enjoyment. Books like these are what the history world needs! Many of my friends who aren’t big history fans would read this, it allows people to learn and enjoy history without taking itself too seriously which is a massive problem in the history world.

There are only 2 reasons for someone not to like this book. One they don’t understand old school British humour. Therefore, before you read take a minute to look up David Mitchell on YouTube and see if you like his humour. If you don’t or you don’t understand it then do not read this book! Also get a better sense of humour. The second reason would be if you go into this thinking it’s a serious history book. It’s not, but again take 10 seconds to see it’s written by a comedian and not a history before you get really disappointed. If you do both those things and still don’t like it. Well I have no idea, try it again maybe?

Anyway, I laughed out loud so many times reading this book. I was excited every time I picked it up. I would recommend to anyone who love history and comedy. For kids who grew up with horrible histories, or adults who loved it to!

David Mitchell brings this whole book to life through his narration. No one else could pull this off like he did. One of the best narrations of a book I’ve ever heard!

Edit: I saw a few reviews which said he was pro monarchy and sexist. Not really sure how people came up with that? Did you miss the part at the end where he says there were much better, smarter and more interesting people alive than these monarchs but they are lost to history. Or the amount of times he makes fun of each monarch and for the UK for still have one? I’m not sure how you could say he’s pro monarchy after that. I think he enjoys the history of the monarchy and can see it as a large part on the UK’s identity today. He definitely was inviting us all to cheer for King Charles. And on the sexism. Please. He wrote about the female monarchs well and when he could he talks about other important women, but at the end of the day it’s a book about medieval history it’s not going to be all about women is it.

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1 person found this helpful

History at a gallop

Interesting and entertaining throughout. A strong sense of, history isn’t what happened, it’s what’s recorded.
Spoliers** Didn’t really make his point that Kings are just blokes, and who they are isn’t really important because they aren’t special in themselves, because we whizzed past so fast that I didn’t really get a feel for who they were and so how non-special they are. However, I wasn’t expecting a perfect book, an interesting entertaining one was all I hoped for, and that’s what I got.

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Thoroughly entertaining

A great sideways swipe at the overblown and puffed up nonsense of the English Monarch, delivered with an iron fist in a comedic glove!

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A fantastic listen

Great telling of a past in that typical style you expect from David Mitchell.
The structuring of this book makes it a very easy listen.

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Fabulous book

Thought provoking and extremely funny - brilliant. A must for all lovers of history and those who are not normally that interested.

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Very funny

Great summary of English history, dispersed with laugh out loud bits of David Mitchell’s brilliant observations. My only criticism (and it’s a minor one) is that it’s so choc full of interesting facts and opinion that it’s a lot to take in. I’d like to see the author making a tv series, where he can deliver it slightly slower with pauses to take in the locations he’s talking about

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loved it

I thoroughly enjoyed every chapter. if you like David Mitchell, you will definitely like this book

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