Fascinating programme on BBC2; as luck would have it, the day I went to a preview of the stage show of Wolf Hall there was a bomb scare before it started and I found myself outside standing next to Hilary and her husband. We chatted for half an hour. I begged her for the third book. I cannot tell you how I'm looking forward to it.

It's on my bedside table, hardback. 28 mins of my current Kindle book to go and shall be commencing!

I'm saving mine for the summer holiday. Like Wolf Hall - when I started reading it - I always read all 6 Booker Prize finalists. That year as luck would have it, it was the first one I started. I loved it so much I simply couldn't rush through and so failed to read the other 5 before the award was given. Luckily it won (I'd even put a hefty sum, at good odds, on it and won several hundred quid). Like a banquet of fine food Mantel's writing is to be savoured slowly; not bolted.

Despite somewhat negative views on our Royal family - for which she received prime ministerial admonishment - HM is now a DBE, of course.

Of Irish descent and raised as a Catholic, she also expressed some serious misgivings on that religion's clergy - long before it became commonplace.

Her novel Fludd depicts a fictional northern English parish in the 50s - demonising its two errant priests. And the Bishop of Plymouth noted a non-catholic thread in Wolf Hall.

anti-catholic*

Fludd is a good novel Barney but outside the "Tudor books" her book on the French Revolution - 'A Place Of Greater Safety" is also a masterpiece..

Let us know what Google says about it?

I think she's a wonderful writer; from the first pages of Wolf Hall I was hooked. I've also always loved JK Rowling and Stephen King. But greatest of all, for me, even today, still, is Charles Dickens.

Just caught up with the HM doc on bbc 2. "I could do more but he (i.e Cromwell) is dead..." What fitting last words. What passion to dedicate 15 years - day after day - to the books. HM is an utterly remarkable woman. Our greatest living writer.

But yes also agree that Dickens is the greatest overall by some margin. King I enjoy, Rowling not read as assumed Harry Potter is just for kids.. Mind you I did love Northern Lights etc so maybe should get over that and try her...!