Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Yes, I know: I've seen the television series based upon this novel and its sequels, and I usually arrange to read the novel first. But it matters little here- this is well-trodden history and spoilers hardly apply. Moreover, the two are not particularly alike. Plot is one thing; interiority is another. Yes, this novel may be a truly magnificent feat of making us truly feel the England of the 1520s and '30s, but it is more than that.

The novel is told entirely through the thoughts and impressions of Thomas Cromwell. The various familiar figures from the reign of Henry VIII very much appear, but we see all of them as Cromwell does. And we come to understand him- his kindness to children, his hard-headed bruiser side, his workaholism, his deeply cultured nature.

The novel truly communicates the nuances and paradoxes of its age, an age in which the line between Catholic and Protestant is blurred in ways which would soon not be true, and an age in which judicial murder coexists with the primacy of legal propriety, in which a famously tyrannical king nonetheless respects that he is constrained by Parliament.

The novel takes a notably sympathetic approach to Cromwell himself, as well as to the future Queen Mary I and the seemingly kindly Cardinal Wolsey. Others, notably Thomas More, the king himself, and Anne Boleyn, get damning portraits, particularly More, a torturing zealot and abusive husband. Others, such as the Duke of Norfolk and the young Christophe, are simply fun.

This is a novel that's all about the nuance, the texture, the reimagined history. It's a truly dizzying experience.