I’m a big admirer of David Mitchell on TV, especially “Would I Lie to you?” Until this week, I had not experienced him as a writer. We don’t get his column in The Observer down under. I was therefore quite surprised to discover I didn’t enjoy David In Print. Mitchell’s droll humour, much anticipated by me, just doesn’t fit comfortably with the history. I too quickly got tired. ( )

I have always imagined that if I were from the UK (or any country where I was funding monarchs with my taxes) I would be a dedicated anti-royalist. As I have no skin in the game I am pretty neutral, but philosophically opposed to any system where merit is conflated with bloodlines. If you are interested in knowing a teeny tiny amount of information about several hundred years worth of English monarchs that will make you hate the system you will enjoy this fun summary. This is essentially the royal history equivalent of 88 Lines About 44 Women. Mitchell is smart, funny, and clearly knowledgable. His stand-up approach to delivery can get overwhelming so if you are going to listen to this you will want to spread it out over time. A 3.5 for me. ( )

I just like him, okay?
And I enjoy listening to him. And he was promoting the shhhhugar out of this on The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter.
It was great fun. Informative and snarky, it debunks the pop history of the monarchs up to Elizabeth I. Mitchell is definitely in the Richard III killed the princes (or at least had them killed) camp - so much for Josephine Tey. It's always a mistake to leave any other claimant to the throne alive. Monarchs were not the tourist attraction figureheads they are today. They were the totalitarian rulers who lived in danger of usurpation - of the fatal variety.

If Bill Bryson used cuss words and wrote a book about the British monarchy, this would be it. Funny, irreverent, and I afraid of finding the hilarity in a whole system that claims a gold hat makes you a ruler. The book flits between the facts of each monarch but doesn’t go too deep with any of them. Come for the history, stay for the humor. ( )

Although I enjoy history books, I wouldn't have bought this myself: I got it as a Christmas present. I've been dipping in and out of it since Boxing Day and finally finished it. I haven't seen much of this author's comedy as it didn't really appeal, and I found this book a mixed bag. The author doesn't like monarchs very much: the first were thugs and later ones idiots. He has some respect for one or two who were competent at their job. There are some insights into how Magna Carta and the development of Parliament was due to weak kings rather than strong ones.

Some bits were mildly amusing, whereas some was puerile schoolboy humour - he gets loads of mileage out of King Canute's/Cnut's name - and there's a lot of f* bomb as well. Plus various personal fixations about current day political issues etc. are aired, sometimes at length. Luckily, I've read or seen documentaries on a lot of it before or I think I would have got lost, especially since he often jumps about between periods of history or an individual monarch's reign and discusses things out of order.

There was some material I knew little about - the Anglo Saxon and Danish kings before Alfred the Great for example. And I have gaps in the Plantagenet dynasty. I did know about the war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda from reading/watching the Cadfael series since that is set against that background. The trouble is, the style doesn't really lend itself to helping me remember any of the bits I didn't already know about.

There's a really odd error around page 170 where he insists that the Order of the Garter moto, Honi soit qui mal y pense, is on the modern day passport. It isn't: the motto of the Royal family appears on it which is probably older - Dieu et mon droit. As this is easy to check it's strange that no one at the publishers picked it up. But it did make me wonder how carefully some of the other facts, new to me, were verified.

The book isn't a keeper but it finishes with praise of Shakespeare so it gains a star for that and overall I would judge it an OK 2 stars. ( )