Sally Bedell Smith offers her readers the illusion of knowing the queen as a friend

The book has much to recommend it, being extensively researched, fluently written and containing quite a lot of intriguing "new" information

A worthy addition to the shelves of royal watchers everywhere

Incisive... well researched

A thoroughly good read

Wonderfully compelling ... what this book, full of unhackneyed paintings and unfamiliar stories, shows is that when Schama is at his best he can see straight through people.

Rich in its variety of subjects ... poignantly memorable

Some of the best writing on British portraiture I have read.

He is both an inspired communicator of detail and context, an excitable and exciting critic and a sleeve-tugging gossip. The idea of portraiture is a perfect vehicle for his detailed imagination...the subjects of the portraits become uncannily alive.

Viewers of his TV shows know what a passionate presenter of his subject - art history - Simon Schama is. He button-holes your eye on his inward voyage of imagination. He does it as compulsively on the page as on screen ... I welcome back in this book history as people - people whose characters can be read in their fascinating faces.

Inspiring ... Schama tells it with panache, weaving facts and anecdotes into a vivid history.

Schama has a masterly ability to conjure up character and vivify conflict

With Schama you look at a picture and see it as you hadn't before

Splendid, spirited, immensely enjoyable and wide-ranging

Shows Schama at his best . . . as full of memorable incident as a Bellow novel and wittier than a Woody Allen movie

Schama writes with grace and wit, and his enthusiasms are contagious

Dazzling, beyond praise

Splendid... seething with ideas. Schama brings great intimacy and authority to proceedings

A fascinating romp through history

Satisfyingly detailed, yet with a convincing overarching thesis.

The dean of living Tudor-era historians

Meticulously researched and highly readable revisionist biography. Recommended for lovers of British history and feminist biography

A fresh, thrilling portrait

Oft portrayed as fierce, this reveals an Elizabeth I who is in fact fallible and insecure

Significant, forensic and myth-busting, John Guy inspires total confidence in a narrative which is at once pacy and rich in detail

The brilliance of Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years lies in the energy of its narrative, as well as in Guy's eye and ear for scene and conversation. To interweave all of this with the life of the queen is a formidable achievement. He has captured the complexity of contemporary politics. ... Most striking is Guy's portrait of Elizabeth

This is a helpful and insightful examination of Luther’s attitudes and relationships… Highly recommended.

Roper portrays a deeply flawed but fascinating human being to rival any of the major personalities of Tudor England.

I heartily commend Martin Luther… It is simply the best English-language biography of Luther I’ve read and I’d be amazed if its combination of rigorous scholarship and approachable tone is bettered.

[A] superb new biography… A challenging and deeply stimulating study of a major historical figure.

The work of a brilliant scholar, who had devoted years of research to the project, and it repays careful reading… There are rich treasures in the book, without a bout. Roper has a great gift for narrative… Roper’s exploration of the cultural and social world of the Saxon miners is masterly… Fascinating.

A probing psychological account.