Part travel guide, part history, Suzannah Lipscomb's A Journey Through Tudor England introduces modern-day readers to 50 historical sites that remain worth seeing today--not just the surviving castles, cathedrals and tombs, but also museums, colleges and smaller locales such as the Elizabethan theater at Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.
Beginning in the greater London area, Lipscomb (1536: The Year That Changed Henry VIII) sketches in historical details that bring each place to life for those unfamiliar with the stories behind the royal dynasty. (In some locations, there is little to "see" in a modern sense; the site of the Battle of Bosworth is a field, and Pontefract Castle, where Richard II is said to have made his last stand, today lies in ruins.) Lipscomb, a frequent presenter on television documentaries about the Tudor era, also includes several vignettes that shed light on the details of the nobility's day-to-day life.
For travelers, A Journey Through Tudor England is a handy guide to many English historical sites worth seeing whether or not one is a Tudorphile; for others, Lipscomb provides an engaging view of England as the Tudors saw it, lived in it and altered it. --Dani Alexis Ryskamp, blogger at The Book Cricket