"The Last Divine Office" by Geoffrey Moorhouse took a look at how the monasteries were dissolved under the rule of my favorite love-to-hate monarch, King Henry VIII. Because I've read so much information about Henry over the years, this book really didn't present me with anything new that I cared about (lists of how much the wine cost the monasteries each year aren't really my cup of tea). While it was an interesting book, I could easily sum it up: "King Henry broke with Rome when the Pope refused to grant him a divorce from Katherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn, so he dissolved the Catholic Church in England and as an added bonus he got ridiculously wealthy in the process by stealing all the church's money". There. Saved you the trouble of reading it. He didn't really go into too much detail as to what happened to the priests and nuns after the monasteries were dissolved, unfortunately.
"Curiosities of Literature" by John Sutherland was right up my alley: very darkly humorous with interesting tidbits about authors and their books. While it was mostly British authors, it was still interesting and very fun, full of insider jokes. I enjoyed it.
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