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Book Salon
Wolf Hall

  • This month we're reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Our faculty host is Paula Moya.

    Listen to an interview with our Book Salon host.

    "Wolf Hall is an award-winning historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel set during the reign of Henry VIII. It is an engaging fictionalized biography of Thomas Cromwell that vividly and skillfully recasts a character that many of us thought we already knew. The book is as fun to read as it is informative, and I look forward to sharing it with you!"

    Paula Moya, professor of English and, by courtesy, of Iberian and Latin American Culture

How to Participate

Read the transcript of the audio interview with Paula Moya

Connect with fellow alumni around the world by participating in our online discussion! 

About this quarter's book selection

Wolf Hall is set in England during the tumultuous Tudor period.  The novel follows the rise of Henry VIII’s ambitious advisor Thomas Cromwell and his efforts to drive a wedge between the Crown and the Catholic Church. Author Hilary Mantel offers a kinder portrait of Thomas Cromwell that allows the reader to explore one of the more controversial and polarizing figures in British history. 

Thomas Cromwell is the son of a blacksmith and eventually rises to become head advisor and confidant to King Henry VIII. Henry VIII wants a son and due to Catholic beliefs surrounding marriage, he is unable to divorce his wife. Cromwell forms a powder keg of a relationship with King Henry to achieve the impossible – a split from the Roman Catholic empire, allowing the King to divorce his wife and remarry.

Wolf Hall is a meticulously researched historical novel and recipient of the Man Booker Prize and the National Books Critics Circle Award. Join other readers in this intimate look at the man who was at the center of the religious upheavals during the English Reformation. 

The Stanford Book Salon [Seriously Unstuffy]