Blog

Nothing makes a book more readable than discovering that a world a million miles away – or five hundred years ago – shares the same concerns as our own. Read More

Opposition, Contradiction and Division in Cromwell’s Orbit The two Cromwell novels are teeming with dualities and divisions. Read More

On The Hunt Animals and their natural tendencies, a common feature of sixteenth-century allegory, pepper both novels, both in actual presence and rich metaphor. Read More

The Fabric of the World One of the many enjoyable aspects of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies is how touchable the world is within: how we can smell, taste and feel those lives of nearly five hundred years ago. The dark hallways and smoky fires, the splash of barge oars in the Thames, the soft leather of unthinking wealth. Read More

There are few figures in British history as universally reviled as Thomas Cromwell. Held responsible for the suppression of the monasteries, the destruction of countless priceless books deemed too ‘popish’ and the attacking of statues, shrines and rood screens across the country, Cromwell has traditionally been viewed as a reforming bulldozer, manipulating the King’s hand to achieve religious changes against the Catholic Church at any cost. Read More

In preparation for The Mirror and the Light publishing next month, let us help you shine a light on the main characters of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. Read More

Bringing the opulent, brutal Tudor world of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII to glittering life, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies have thrilled and delighted readers, critics and prize judges alike. Both novels won the Man Booker Prize and have sold over five million copies across the globe. Starting today, let us take you through the story so far, introduce you to the main players and explore the key themes. The Mirror and the Light is out now. Read More

In celebration of Nigel Slater’s Greenfeast: autumn, winter publishing this October, we asked some 4th Estate authors to write a few words about veg-minded living. Bee Wilson, author of First Bite and The Way We Eat Now: 'Nigel Slater has strong feelings about bowls, and he is not afraid to share them. Take porridge. Nigel has two wooden bowls made from ash, which he saves for his morning oats. ‘I feel like Goldilocks’, he writes, ‘even when they are used for a strawberry Bircher muesli’. Read More

In celebration of Nigel Slater’s Greenfeast: autumn, winter publishing this October, we asked some 4th Estate authors to write a few words about veg-minded living. Lisa Appignanesi, author of Everyday Madness: A Many Coloured Feast 'Back in the mid-nineties, I lived around the corner from a street market in Paris. Most mornings, I’d head out early for a coffee. But well before the first pungent whiff had come my way, my eyes were startled wide open by the various stall holders’ displays of fruit and vegetables. Read More

In celebration of Nigel Slater’s Greenfeast: autumn, winter publishing this October, we asked some 4th Estate authors to write a few words about veg-minded living. Lucy Wood, author of The Sing of the Shore: Blackberries 'Blackberries are my favourite autumn food. By the end of summer the hedges are starting to fill up and I watch them, waiting for when they’ll be ripe. It usually takes longer than I think.  Finally, I take out an old ice-cream tub and go picking. If it’s sunny the berries will be warm. If it’s raining they’ll gleam like sweets. The hedges and lanes are a mixture of abundance and things dying back – the coppers of changing leaves, strings of red berries, the brittle stalks of cow parsley. Everything is quietening down. There’s a shift in pace. It always feels like the start of a new year. Read More

In celebration of Nigel Slater’s Greenfeast: autumn, winter publishing this October, we asked some 4th Estate authors to write a few words about veg-minded living. Angela Saini, author of Inferior and Superior: "My parents moved home a lot when I was young, but in the garden of one of our houses - my favourite, thinking back - was an old plum tree. Read More

In celebration of Nigel Slater’s Greenfeast: autumn, winter publishing this October, we asked some 4th Estate authors to write a few words about veg-minded living. Laura Whateley, author of Money: "When I decided, aged 25, to move in with my boyfriend, it was not the loss of single-girl freedom that most concerned me, nor how we would navigate our different views on “tidiness” - he’s an Essex boy with a father who was an architect, immaculate work surfaces are in his blood. Read More