@Debbie-L thank you 
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@Samox24 those are fabulous photos!
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I love Sudeley Castle too @Samox24. 2019 was when I last visited and those amazing animal sculptures were not there then.
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The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland. The story is epic, tragic, heroic. I sat down to read it yesterday afternoon and kept on reading till I finished it in the evening. Absolutely unputdownable! Freedland writes history the way it should be written, like a novel.
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I have just finished reading The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company
by William Dalrymple. The East India Company’'s “empire” became the British Raj in India. The book shows how
the East India Company ceased to be a conventional international trading corporation dealing in silks and spices and became something much more unusual: an aggressive colonial power in the guise of a multinational business.
It is sort of scary if you compare it to a multinational shareholder company like amazon, tesla, facebook or google (or others) taking over an entire country!
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That relentless drive, obsession, is how it’s done.
Slowly and quietly, step by step, inch by inch…
Hi @Amparo
If your comment is regarding my post above it, the East India Company had a private army of 200,000 soldiers (mostly mercenaries) which was more than double what the British army had at the time. And they were quite fast to take over most of India - it was mainly the 50 years from late 1750s to 1803 although the EIC itself was set up in 1599.
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Yes it was about your comparisons to Amazon etc. very insightful
Nicola Tallis
Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey
Known to history as “the Nine Days Queen,” her reign lasted, in fact, for thirteen days. Lady Jane Grey was seventeen years old when she was beheaded at the Tower of London.
This dramatic narrative traces the dangerous plots and web of deadly intrigue in which Jane became involuntarily tangled–and which ultimately led to a shocking and catastrophic conclusion.
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@cat.tails looks a good read. Thank you for sharing. 
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I just finished this, a true story about a student who reconnects with his favourite professor from 20 years ago when he hears that the professor is dying. It is an easy 2 or 3-day read. You know what is coming from page one but will still shed a tear at the end.
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I’m reading the The Subtle Knife - its the second book of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. It’s a good book to read in between the non-fiction/history books I am interested in at the moment 
Two of my recent favourites.
Both impossible to put down - for me, anyway!
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@Colin that’s a wonderful book! Thanks for the nudge – I’m going to bump re-reading it up to the top of my (never-ending) reading list. 
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I prefer audiobooks to books, rather than using Audible, my library has so many audio and ebooks for free via the BorrowBox app (England). Currently listening to Martin Kemp, bass player with 80’s band Spandau Ballet. The highs and lows of being famous, his family and how they went from playing in a pub to Live Aid, then, sadly, the end of the group and damaged friendships.
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I reserved my first audio book on BorrowBox last month and it has turned up now. I need to download it - Jeeves & Wooster: The Collected Radio Dramas by P.G. Wodehouse
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@cat.tails I love Borrowbox.
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@mars Looks interesting!