now seems like a good time to ask

[swan_tower]

Well, I think it's past midnight in the UK, so I missed the perfect window by a few hours. But:

If I were to read only one book on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which book should it be?

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Not my period, but the reviews seem to indicate that the front runner is James Travers, Gunpowder: the Players Behind the Plot (The National Archive, 2005). Otherwise, there's Alan Haynes, The Gunpowder Plot, (2005), which looks to be academic-lite.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll probably pick up one or the other, possibly both depending on how energetic I feel.

[stephanieburgis.livejournal.com]

I loved Faith and Treason by Antonia Fraser (although the last section actually gave me nightmares, something rare for nonfiction books).

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Nightmares? How so?

[stephanieburgis.livejournal.com]

The graphic descriptions (which weren't at all gratuitous - they honestly needed to be there, although I found them painful to read) of the torture that Guy Fawkes and the others went through before "signing" their confessions...it really got to me.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Ah. Yes, that would be pretty bad.

(I took a class once on witchcraft. Read way too much about the interrogation of suspected witches. Rather similar, I think.)