Although best known for her fiction, especially the 'Wolf Hall' trilogy, Hilary Mantel also writes some of the sharpest essays on historical and contemporary political and social matters. MANTEL PIECES, our Book of the Week this week, assembles thirty years of incisive essays from the London Review of Books, including 'Royal Bodies', 'In Bed with Madonna', and ruminations on Jane Boleyn, Robespierre, the murder of James Bulger, Britain's last witch, the Hair Shirt Sisterhood, and numerous other— sometimes surprisingly—relevant and urgent topics. Compelling. 
>>"Witty and ferocious."
>>"Fun isn't high on my list."
>>Some of the essays, in the LRB.

>>How writers learn to trust themselves. 
>>The outfits, my dear!
>>Mantel reads 'Royal Bodies'.
>>Inside the head...
>>Some Mantelbooks.