If you're missing drinking (copious amounts of) wine and chatting with your local book club, then maybe you can join a virtual one. The Washington Post is doing a book club on Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel. The best part about quarantining is that you can deep dive into series-- and since Mantel's finale to the triology The Mirror and the Light just released, you can binge the entire series! This doesn't replace a circle of dear friends at your own book club, but in the mean time, reading the smart conversation in weekly updates from The Washington Post can make you still feel tied to your fellow readers. And maybe it can be inspiration for your own book club to virtual pick up the book! Plus, in these unknown times, revisiting the history of Thomas Cromwell and remembering what has been survived before us can remind us of our own strength.

Synopsis

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?