Your comment is so perceptive, Carrie. In his books, Sansom brings out very poignantly that, as humans, our drive to live is strong; but not irresistible. I am interested in that, and martyrdom is a recurring theme of the blog.

Your blog is a roller-coaster of emotions. From the gut-wrenching situation you find yourself in you manage not only to bring in some darkish humour (Thomas the Tank Engine made me smile), juxtaposed against Plath’s desperate words, but also to lead us to an analysis of the beginnings of the Huguenot migration from France.

Returning to your hospital experience you then present an analytical truth of the workings of a system: ‘The infernal bedside waiting is like being trapped in a timepiece. A vast hospital system grinds slowly around the patient; it knows its own ways’; a phrase which jolted me into understanding religious zealotry in your discussion of Sansom’s work. The novel is a pleasant diversion for you and for the reader, realising that underneath it all is the religious questioning which, I see, characterises your blogs.

I get a feeling by the end that your personal zealotry was of a younger Jo and that family commitments (and other events possibly) have allowed this to slide away. By the end of the blog you wonderfully bring together the cancer ward and religious points of view to a fundamental celebration of life and hope – ‘we want to live’.

Thank you Jo.
Carrie x

It’s the bits about the cancer ward that hit me hard. I’m a hospitalphobe, even though both my parents were medics and I was brought up right next to hospitals. Sick adults are bad enough but when it’s your child it really is heart-rendingly awful and you do convey that feeling so well, so succinctly and without sentimentality.

I’ve never read the Sansom books but they sound fascinating. It’s hard to write about belief in another era with conviction. I’m reading a book about the siege of Masada in 71BCE and I’m not sure that the author, Alice Hoffmann, manages to do it with complete success. To me she makes it sound at times like the Zealots were hysterical, superstitious and melodramatic. So when I’m next in the library, I’ll be looking out for a Sansom.

And re Religious zealots who lack conviction…I agree. It leaves the viewer puzzled. I have often felt the same about fictional labour movement struggles where the penalty, if not death was certainly transportation. Somehow they rarely manage to catch the fire, let alone getting the film extras to demonstrate their rage convincingly.

I heard Sansom give an interview on Radio 4 which was extremely moving. I’m very grateful to him for giving me books to read which are a quick exit route from what is impossible to bear. Through reading, my mind absorbs all the alarming new information and – after a period of sheer terror – eventually settles down.

Thank you, Hephzi. I suppose that weaving is partly a quest to make sense of the world as I know it.

I did not know Sansom has cancer. Tombland is so long, I was not surprised that it took him a while! When feeling poorly myself I recently reread the whole series, and am now rereading a biography of Bess of Hardwick, which makes me even more aware how skilfully Sansom blends Tudor history with gripping fiction. The Hardwick writer, Mary Lovell, cheats a bit by using the word Protestant, even though she knows that it wasn’t yet in general use.

I didn’t know that, Ted – I haven’t yet reached “Tombland” in the series. It’s the sort of detail Sansom might include. I’m fascinated by the way he manages to make his novels bestselling blockbusters which are also historically satisfying.