Edd Morris

This book is gorgeously presented, with lavish photos and very good layout of text. It also takes a sensible approach with its organization, explaining the general layout of castles and providing a primer on some basic features before focusing on key events associated with a selected number of castles. It even includes information on how to get to each castle and what sort of English Heritage / National Trust facilities are available. However, the text was in need of a human proofreader -- it contained a lot of errors of the sort that spellcheck won't catch (taut/taught, dyed/died, etc.). I also found some of the text hard to read because of the design choice to use a photo as a watermark for an entire page, with a smaller version of the photo being presented on that same page in full bright colour. And the choice to include the map showing the castle's location in the UK at the END of each section rather than the beginning did not make sense to me.

If you like pretty pictures of castles and have a general familiarity with English history, this might be worth flipping through at the library.… (meer)