Gave up circa page 60.

The title really is very clear on what the book is like and I should have paid attention. The book enumerates many curious facts about the daily life of people in Tudor times, with emphasis on facts and details, and minimal analysis or summaries or anything of the sort. As such, it is perhaps wonderful (if the mood strikes you) to loose yourself in the glorious details of male stocking fashion at the time, et cetera, but otherwise it becomes rather tedious reading.

The details easily wash out from memory, unless you have a specific interest in them, and the main points (from what I gathered at the point when I gave up) could have been summarised in a long-ish and interesting blog post. The main takeaway would probably be that people four, five hundred years ago were quite similar to us. The details differ, but the general vibe is the same – people want to be clean, warm, and fed, with some social status and attainable aspirations in life, plus some fun thrown in.

4.5, really looking forward to other books in this series.

If you ever wondered how it would be to live as a Tudor or as a Victorian, etc., historian Ruth Goodman has written a series of books discussing exactly that. How to Be a Tudor is one of several history books in these interesting series. Goodman describes in an accessible writing style the daily life of common people in the Tudor Age. One does not need to be an academic scholar to read this book. It is an easy, enjoyable read, but with a wealth of information that makes it a great book for everyone -- The casual reader as well as the scholar.