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FICTION:Wolf Hall: A novelBy Hilary Mantel 4th Estate, 653pp. £18.99

ON THE 500th anniversary of his ascent to the throne, the reign of Henry VIII still rivets us. The king was an enormous character and the overflow of his turbulent domestic life into political and religious reform ruptured the history of these islands, marking England’s break from its ancient obeisance to Rome and the beginnings of modernity. Hilary Mantel’s latest work deals with a comparatively brief period of that reign, from 1527 to Sir Thomas More’s execution in 1535. Yet the sheer bulk of this blockbuster is almost as overwhelming as its subject, recording the shifting tensions of a court at war with itself and detailing the constant negotiations of people and politics through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who rose from blacksmith’s son to sophisticated businessman and right- hand fixer for the King.