Books (F and NF) about the Tudor period

[Milpale]

I'm interested in learning more about Tudor times.
I already have a couple of Shardlakes(read and enjoyed Dissolution, not yet started the second) and The Six Wives of Henry 8th.
I need reads that aren't too heavy going and I am particularly interested in details of how people lived rather than tight historical information such as wars etc.
Can you recommend anything?

A non-fiction book I really enjoyed was, The Lady in the Tower by Alison Weir. It's about the last days of Anne Boleyn and really engaging.

Man on A Donkey by HFM Prescott. This is fiction and involves a cast of characters at the time of the Dissolution. It was the book which Hilary Mantel said inspired her to write Wolf Hall. It's chunky, about a 1000 pp but it will whizz by once you get stuck in.

There's a whole series of whodunnit books by Edward Marston that feature a group of theatre stage players operating in Elizabethan times - look for the 'Nicholas Bracewell' series (16 in all I think)

Thank you both, those recommendations sound spot on.

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory is good. She has a whole series throughout the period but the ones set earlier in the period were written later but are weaker in my opinion

Alison Weir has done a six part set of fictionalised books about the six wives of Henry VIII - I find her books really good.

Non fiction wise I would say Antonia Fraser's Six Wives of Henry VIII still stands up.

Fiction I really enjoyed Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell. It's about a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream but also delves into street life and politics at the end of the period. I thought it was really good. I hated the play when I read it at school but I appreciate it a bit more now.

The time travellers guide to Elizabethan England is an entertaining read about the later Tudor period.

Reformation to Industrial Revolution by Christopher Hill
The Military Revolution 1500-1800 by Geoffrey Parker
The Rise and Fall of Meryy England by Ronald Hutton

The books that shaped my view of the LMA/EM periods in England.

Elizabeth Chadwick, Philippa Gregory, Alison Weir - in order of 'seriousness'. Sharon Kay Penman is wonderful as well.

Oh and I only really read fiction but Weir has non fiction books as well

It’s a little more specialist but you might enjoy Eamon Duffy’s Voices of Morebath? It follows a single village through the ups and downs of the Reformation and the various religious changes of the time. Since it’s focused on one place, it makes it all a bit more human than larger studies of the Reformation.

If you like a good cry “Innocent Traitor” by Alison Weir is wonderful. It’s about Lady Jane Grey so you know what’s going to happen. It’s written from several different perspectives- the one where I sobbed my heart out was the bit by her nurse. So well done.

A pp also mentioned her Six Wives series - these are excellent.

My other recommendation is David Starkeys book about Elizabeth I, called Elizabeth. Some great writing about her early life rather than her later life as queen. I lost this book in a move and must get it again.

IMO Alison Weir is better at non fiction than fiction.

The magnum opus is the Wolf Hall trilogy, well researched fiction about the life of Thomas Cromwell.

Jean Plaidy’s two fiction books about Mary, Queen of Scots (who overlaps with Elizabeth 1) are great and I would read others of hers too.

Devices and Desires, NF about the houses of Bess of Hardwick (married to a key adviser of Elizabeth 1) is v good too.

I was also going to recommend Innocent Traitor. A brilliant book.

This is very good on the Tudors in Ireland.

www.amazon.co.uk/Nine-Years-War-1593-1603-Revolution/dp/184682754X

www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2017/nine-years-war

Another vote for Alison Weir non-fiction. I would also recommend her book 'The Princes in the Tower' which strictly speaking is about the plantagenets, but an excellent read.