Joan Glasheen

Supposedly a look at the servants closest to the British monarchs. This should be fascinating! And yet, it took me five months to force myself through it. The writing is alternately hardly-intelligible lists and falsely cozy chattiness. Glasheen writes terrible, gossipy summations of each monarch, followed by a list of servants and their pay. Sometimes she'll tack on a few sentences of analysis: oh look, the Knight-Harbinger earned an extra pound this year. Scintillating.

This reads like someone's thesis notes, not a book.… (mer)