A great king ?

I listened to Dan Jones’ book Henry V on audio where it was energetically and enthusiastically narrated by the author. The book is fast paced and the author has taken the decision to write it in the present tense which gives the narrative a sense of immediacy and urgency which you might not get otherwise – it works for this biography but I don’t think that all history books would necessarily benefit from this way of writing.

This is a cradle to grave biography of the great medieval king whom the author obviously admires, although he is careful to point out his flaws and also what opinion people had of him at the time. The book also addresses Shakespeare’s version of this king and shows how it differs from reality – this bit might not be relevant to you if you don’t know the play but I think that it’s important as so many people probably only know the king through this work. I particularly enjoyed the section debunking the speech on the eve of Agincourt.

This is a biography and not a military history so there isn’t a huge amount about how the battles, for which Henry is famous, were won, or lost. This suits me as I am not a particular fan of military history and I wanted to know more about the person who was king. I think that this book got as near as you can to this, given what evidence is available, and it certainly made him seem more real to me.

This is a truly entertaining read/listen but that doesn’t make it less authoritative.  The author has been writing about this period of history for a while (see my review here of one of his previous books) and this book has helped to make the times more understandable for me.