Adrian Tinniswood

A rattling good read. This is the story of the period leading up to London's Great Fire, the terrifying and confused days of the fire itself, and then the aftermath. Tinniswood has pieced together the human, political and economic consequences of this cataclysm in a measured, yet gripping fashion, recreating the period in telling detail. Who knew, for instance, that the clothworkers of Coventry would suffer so from the consequences of the fire? They'd just send down a £2000 consignment of cloth to London for export .... and it was consumed by the flames. Or that foreigners would come under the kind of suspicion and mistrust that asylum seekers here can feel in our own times? This is an evocative, gripping account.… (meer)

So short that it is a bit trivial. There are some good quotations and Robert Boyle's letter about the luminescent lump of veal found in his cellar, which is included in the Appendix, is great.

It rather helps to know about the events alluded to already. With enough background, the cursory descriptions in this book make sense.

It looks like, along with everything else in England, The Royal Society has degenerated into a bureaucracy which still uses the same name the former institution did.… (meer)