Fascinating

It's only taken me three years to get here, but I have finally finished this book. I've had to restart it once, but now it can finally retire from my bedside table and take its rightful place on my bookshelves. It was immensely interesting, telling the story of Charles I's execution, the events leading up to it, and then beyond, but through the story of his prosecutor, John Cooke. My history between about 1400-1850 is generally a little patchy, but this one really appealed to both the history and law students in me. And I was intrigued to read a historical report written by a lawyer, where definites replaced maybes, and statements were made as fact rather than supposition.

But why did it take so long? Well for me reading is for relaxation, to lose myself in adventure and mayhem, and generally non-fiction doesn't really fall in that category all that well. So this has been a holiday read, put down a couple of weeks into semester, and picked up again once uni is on break again. But even that isn't always reliable - I had to restart it this year because it stayed home when I went abroad last year. But yesterday I picked it up again, after putting it down in July, and carried on reading, mid-paragraph, as though I'd never left it. That's a sign of a good book, by my calculations. And now, finally, it is finished. I look forward to reading it again in a year or two, but hopefully it won't take me so long next time.