The Mirror and the Light

Decembers Bookshelf is a mission in persistence… The Mirror and the Light.

The Mirror and the Light is the last of the Wolf Hall trilogy from the late Hilary Mantel. I have chosen it because there is something about the shifting tides of Tudor politics that still resonates so well today. It deals in many respects, with the fundamental question of where we place and hold our trust; how we communicate; how institutions fail to serve the needs of the majority, when faced with absolute, if corruptible, power.

In reading the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell so creatively narrated by Mantel, we are forced inevitably to look at our own values, beliefs and motivations, particularly how we rate loyalty in our own framework of reference.