I really enjoy history and particularly love reading about medieval, Tudor and Elizabethan history. Browsing my local library recently I came across a book by Ian Mortimer that really appealed to me. The book, entitled the time travellers guide to medieval England really ,is very different to any history book I have ever read and one I can highly recommend. Imagine you could travel back in time to medieval England. What would you see and hear and smell? This really sums up what the book is about and how it is written. The introduction starts by asking the reading what the term *medieval* conjures up. It goes on to dispel commonly held views that medieval ...  Read the complete review

'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.' After studying history at university I was all too familiar with L.P Hartley's over-used and exhausted citation. And what a shame it is that there are no Easyjet flights to the Summer of Love of '69, no package holidays to Victorian London and no long-haul expeditions to Ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, Ian Mortimer does the best he can do in the absence of a Time Lord travel agency as he endeavours to take his readers on a journey back to a time long gone. And you won't need your sunglasses, flip-flops and itsy-bitsy bikinis for this trip. In fact, a young woman such as a myself may fare better with a ..  Read the complete review

I like reading history related books and so does my dad, so there is a constant traffic of titles between us. He gave me the book I am reviewing today -The Time Travellers Guide To Medieval England by Ian Mortimer. The medieval period is one of my favourites to read about, and so is social rather than polictical or military history, so the book seemed perfect for me. I have read one other book by Ian Mortimer - "The Greatest Traitor - a life of Sir Roger Mortimer." That was an interesting book to me, probably because the man in quesion is one of my distant grandfathers, although the author is not related! I felt that I would like to read ...  Read the complete review

Intro- why buy this? I love to travel. Each time I go some place I haven't visited before I like to buy a guide book so I can get a feel for where I am going; the language, the people, the law, the food, the customs, the landscape, places of interest etc etc. Having gone to many different places I am very proud of my little collection. Travel, I suppose is a form of escapism, as is my habit of travel guide reading and my love of history. I was very worried about studying medieval history when I started at university last year and I felt like I needed some sort of guide to get a feel for what I was about to embark on. The huge text books the university had ...  Read the complete review