John Microwave’s Reviews > Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens > Status Update

"where he died without even having seen the magnificent cathedral for the confined reasons that he was blind and it hadn't yet been built"

I do like that the chapters are pretty short though. They're easy just to blitz one before bed.

I'm not sure if it's just because I'm tired or because of the writing. But I took very little of that chapter in. Weirdly for a book that is meant to be a good starting overview you do need to have a bit of knowledge for some things to make total sense.

"They came from Scandinavia, but nobody knows why they came and, conversely, before the late eighth century, nobody knows why they didn't"

I do appreciate what David Mitchell is doing. Condensing a lot of information about historical Britain and making it approachable. But I think this maybe is a bit too light of an approach for me. Like he just seems so preoccupied with making sentences funny that they lose some detail and readability.

Either he's starting to tone it down or I'm starting to get on board with his writing a bit more, or at least I'm understanding more of it now. He does make a good point about religion and how it probably is just a scapegoat for a lot of violence people just want to commit because they're arseholes.