nathanjhunt's reviews
143 reviews

This was my 35th book finished in 2024.

I really wanted to like this book, but I was really quite disappointed. The blurb makes it sound more exciting than it ultimately was.

I completely understand that this was not meant to be a novel - it simply inspired latter ones. It was written to be read by learned societies, the government, the navy etc. Therefore there are a lot of notes and time spent on directions, wind speed, weather... Things that are just dull and irrelevant today.

It was interesting to read about other cultures and places, but a few extra footnotes would have helped with the understanding.

At the end of the day, I've read more interesting naval narratives.

This was my 14th book finished in 2025.

I know I'm not the target audience for this, but I have to review every book I read...

This was rough. Even by children's book standards. It was mostly just rehashed drawings lifted from other books in the series, which took away any context. They just felt so out of place and forced, with additional cringe and puns added.

I also feel like there were a lot of jokes that go over kid's heads. Name one child in the 2020s who knows what an anorak is! I'm 30 years old, but some things went right over my head too; in short, some jokes don't land.

Also, one of the jokes is borderline derogatory and homophobic - referring to history as "fruity". Jeez, what century are we in again?

 It was all filler - I can't believe they charge a fiver for this!

This was my 30th book finished in 2024.

The content was very fleeting. I found it barely explained anything about each monarch, and more often lay into legends or unproven rumours. There was surprisingly little detail about the monarchs in question.

This book was published 29 years ago; it's obviously going to be out of date. The most obvious ones being that Elizabeth II and Lady Diana are now both dead, but still referred to in the present in the book!

It also has a crazy amount of fatphobia within the pages. This seems to be a theme of children's books from the 20th century, I've noticed. I mean, "the prince of whales", seriously? Jesus. 

I found it funny that the author kept referring to "mistresses" as "girlfriends" and "favourite woman friends" hah.

The thing that bugged me the most was saying Edward VII was the last king to have a beard... His son George V is well known for his beard and moustache. There's literally a drawing of him ten pages earlier!

Fun to read, I suppose, but a bit dull.

This was my 27th book finished in 2024.

The text, for the majority was well-written and easy to understand; some other Penguin Monarch titles are definitely not like that.

Unfortunately, I just found it quite dry and dull. Obviously, there was a lot of military talk, but not so much of other specific things (y'know, the only things I actually know about Cromwell). 

I thought the author weirdly justified some of the bad things Cromwell did. It's okay that he massacred innocent people, because everyone did at the time (and they did it much more in Europe). 

I don't think the Civil War is my cup of tea. I'm definitely a Restoration Era girlie.

This was my 26th book finished in 2024.

I was a bit disappointed in this book. It was published in 1993 as the first in the series, so it was still finding it's feet. Unfortunately I didn't learn much at all, and it felt more like an activity book than a history book in places.

The chronology was all over the place, but I know that it is in most HH books. This felt more like a book about Henry VIII and Elizabeth I - where are Edward and Mary?

I know Deary seems to hate "boring dates", but some would have been useful to give context to the period. He even said in the intro that the beginning and end of the Tudor periods were very different (there's a great drawing to demonstrate this), so I just felt it needed distinguishing more.

There are a couple paragraphs that cover the Stuart period and even modern history; was it necessary?

It spends a bit of time in places talking about tales that are just myths or not true - why bother giving any time to things that are misconceptions? Also, in a couple places, the author says things that are simply false - such as Henry VIII writing "Greensleeves"; this was written in Italy before Henry was born. Stop repeating myths!

This was my 23rd book finished in 2024.

This book was alright; it was better than the previous HH books I read. I've been in a real Ancient Egyptian mood after watching The Mummy, so this fitted the bill.

Over all, I'd say it was interesting and engaging, but there were near-constant quizzes, a few typos, and the author repeated himself on about three occasions. I guess I'm saying it could have done with a couple more proof-reads. There also seemed to be more drawings than usual, which ended up feeling like filler for the lack of text.

Overall, good and not dull in any places. 

This was my 13th book finished in 2024.

To start with, I want to say that I did like the contents of the book, but I didn't like the style of it.

I found the author frequently used the longest and most convoluted way of framing a question or a sentence. This was very hard to engage with at times, and caused me to not follow on occasions.

One thing that I found a little off-putting was the way the author uses a lot of lengthy quotes, instead of incorporating them into a paragraph to explain the point he's making.

I do have a fair amount of background knowledge on the restoration era and the monarchs either side of James II, and that helped a lot. I think one would struggle a bit without that knowledge, as the author doesn't do much to explain details of historical events before and after James' reign.

This was my 12th book finished in 2024.

This was a great book; incredibly engaging and interesting. I'm glad it was written by a woman from a woman's perspective.

So I was quite surprised to read that Victoria was actually pretty bad at what she did. The public view of her has always been wrong! Very interesting to read about her relationship with Albert... It wasn't all roses.

A great, albeit brief look at her long life. How different things were from the start to the end of her reign.

This was my 52nd book finished in 2023.

The information was really very interesting, with lots of nice photos. I liked the additional summarised histories of the various districts of Essex.

But there was nothing specific about the items in the book. It gives a general view (which was great), but I also wanted to know about the actual item. When was it found? Who by? Was it metal detected? Was it found in a river? Give me some kind of information about the find itself! And if that info isn't available, then say it isn't... I just felt there was an opportunity to include more in the text.

As an archaeologist, it was useful to study various objects to help me perhaps identify something in the future.

The last object was disappointing - not even archaeology, nor part of the PAS.

My 38th book finished in 2023.

My friend Stewart gave me this book before I left the UK. I've been carrying it around the Caribbean, South America and Asia since then. I began reading it in Peru, then started again three months later in Vietnam. I left it in a homestay in Hue.

I hated this book. I hated every single thing about it. With every turn of the page, I had to quell the urge to kill myself. This rubbish took me three months to get through, and I could only do that by playing it through text to speech using Google Lens.

Nick Lane is a talented author - talented at turning the most curiously interesting subjects into the most mundane droll trash I've ever heard. How can he possibly make evolution, sex, dinosaurs and death so goddamn boring??

I absolutely hate myself for sticking with this book. By far the most boring thing I've ever had the displeasure to put myself through.