The Good, the Bad and the Unready: The Remarkable Truth Behind History's Strangest Nicknames

by Robert Easton

The Good , the Bad and the Unready is the perfect book for discovering how one man could be both Charles the Scourge of God and Charles the Affable. Or who exactly it was that Vlad impaled. Or how some eighteen people earned the appellation 'the Great' (and that's not including Anthony the Great Bastard and Anne the Great Whore). Or why Joan the Mad never went anywhere without her husband's corpse.
The Reverend Robert Easton's irreverent guide to the most peculiar nicknames of history gives brief, funny biographies of not just the Good, the Bad and the Unready, but also the Shaggy, the Worthless, the Silly, the Elephant, the King of Slops and many more. Everybody history remembers for being blessed - or, more often, cursed - with a memorable moniker.

Genres: History, Trivia, Reference

291 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 2006

About the author

Rev. Robert Easton lives and moves across three passions - his love of the Church (he is an Anglican minister), his love of education (he teaches Religious Studies and Latin at Brighton College), and his love of the written word (e.g. his work The Good, the Bad and the Unready, Penguin 2008). He lives and works in Brighton with Kai, his wife, Harry, their dog, and Dugdale, a tangerine-coloured left-hand-drive Citroen 2CV.

Reviews

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting set of biographical sketches of noble/royal historical figures (most, but not all, from Europe) and their nicknames and how they got them. As Easton points out, nicknames are surprisingly important: how many people would remember Ethelred the Unready, if not for his catchy nickname? (A more appropriate if less catchy nickname for him would be Ethelred the Badly Advised.) Nicknames can tell us what the person's contemporaries thought about them, but they can also be surprisingly misleading.

This is not serious history, and I spotted a few errors. For example, Easton repeats the old canards about Anne Boleyn having six fingers on one of her hands (she did not) and Napoleon being short (he was of average height for a man of his time and place). But it's good fun nevertheless, and would make good toilet or bedside reading.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moderately interesting read about the nicknames of history. After a while, it became a bit tedious keeping all of the interrelationships straight. Would have been nice if, in the Kindle version, the entries would link to each other for quicker reference.

[Nada Al-Karmi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though the concept was interesting, it was badly executed. Most of the time I was confused because the author decided to list the nicknames in alphabetical order rather than chronological. Seriously, if you're gonna write a book about royalty nicknames, shouldn't it be done according to chronological order so as to know who was related to whom? Instead, I spent my timing going back to see who was the father of this or the son of that. Anyway, not a bad idea but the organization gives a bit of a headache.

[Booklovers Melbourne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Also reviewed on http://bookloversmelbourne.blogspot.c...

This time we get to see the back story behind the nicknames of the great and the good of history. Why was Peter "The Great'? Why was Ptolemy 'the Chickpea'?? This is where you need to go to get the low down on them all.

[Carole Moran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting reading and a good reference book. Especially helpful to history buffs and possibly to genealogists.