British author Hilary Mantel has won the Man Booker Prize for the second time; she is the first British writer - and the first woman - to achieve this distinction.

The Man Booker Prize, founded in 1969, "aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland."

Mantel's novel, Bring up the Bodies, is the second book in Mantel's "Wolf Hall trilogy" about Thomas Cromwell:

Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. 

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. 

Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head?

The first book in the trilogy, Wolf Hall, won the Man Booker Prize in 2009:

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. 

Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. 

Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? 

"Carefully looking at distinguished authors from a medical perspective, Ross blends biography, history, literature, science, and imagination in just the right doses."

--Booklist (starred review)

"This book is the perfect cup of tea for the year of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Give it to lovers of all things British. It's also a good bet for fans of Alexander McCall Smith." 

-- Booklist  

Britain's Queen is beginning to feel her age, and needs some proper cheering up. Perhaps she'll find relief in an impromptu visit to a place that holds happy memories -- the former royal yacht, "Britannia," now moored near Edinburgh.

Hidden beneath a hoodie, Elizabeth walks out of Buckingham Palace into the freedom of a rainy London day and heads for King's Cross to catch a train to Scotland. But a characterful cast of royal attendants has discovered her missing. In uneasy alliance a lady-in-waiting, a butler, an equerry, a girl from the stables, a dresser, and a clerk from the shop that supplies Her Majesty's cheese set out to find her and bring her back before her absence becomes a national scandal.

Mrs Queen Takes the Train is a clever novel, offering a fresh look at a woman who wonders if she, like "Britannia" herself, has, too, become a relic of the past. William Kuhn paints a charming yet biting portrait of British social, political, and generational rivalries -- between upstairs and downstairs, the monarchy and the government, the old and the young. Comic and poignant, fast paced and clever, this delightful debut tweaks the pomp of the monarchy, going beneath its rigid formality to reveal the human heart of the woman at its center.

William Kuhn is a Boston-based biographer and historian, and the author, most recently, of Reading Jackie, a look at the personality of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis through the books she chose to edit. He has written three previous books: Democratic Royalism; Henry and Mary Ponsonby; and The Politics of Pleasure. 

Please join us on Thursday, October 25 at 7pm, as William Kuhn presents Mrs. Queen Takes the Train.