We’re coming up on holiday season, so this feels like a good time to get a book or two or ten for your friends and family. So it's the perfect time for our intrepid book editor, Talia, to share the November nonfiction book of the month: Mortal Monarchs.
The Panel: Destiny of the Republic
The Members: Dustin Ducharme, Joe Huber, Ron Huggins, Edward Johnson, David Lindholm, Theodore Luke, John Mospan, Dennis Petroskey, Russel Quinlan, Paul Schroeder, Karl Weber
The Book: Mortal Monarchs by Susie Edge
Supplemental Reading:
For stories of American icons—human, animal, and otherwise:
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
Meet You in Hell: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the Bitter Partnership that Transformed America by Les Standiford
Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific
Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival by Peter Stark
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough by Ian Frazier
Almost A Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence by John Ferling
For years when a lot happened:
The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
1968: The Year That Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky
For manmade disasters:
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and How It Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin
The Halifax Explosion: Canada’s Worst Disaster by Ken Cuthbertson
Fire and Brimstone:The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917 by Michael Punke
His Majesty’s Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World’s Largest Flying Machine by S.C. Gwynne
For natural disasters:
Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester
The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America’s Deadliest Avalanche by Gary Krist
For crimes, conspiracies, secrets, and spies:
The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Herman Göring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII by Jack El-Hai
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell
The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West by Shaun Walker
The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalia Zemon Davis
For Renaissance-related writing:
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King
Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival by Steven Greenblatt
For the obligatory sports/history crossover: The Sweet Science by AJ Liebling
Welcome back once again to our nonfiction Book of the Month club! Though we’ve been unintentionally mirroring last year’s panel order, we’re finally interrupting the pattern, moving from Great Writing to History & Biography.
A quick note: I’m still working to set up an interview with Wright Thompson, the author of The Barn, so you haven’t missed your chance to ask any questions you’d like me to pass along! Feel free to comment questions on this post, post them in the club Discord channel, or email them to me: jpbookofthemonth@gmail.com.
It’s a daunting task to follow any Great Writing pick, much less our previous winner: Wright Thompson’s The Barn. While many of the books we’ve read in this club so far haven’t exactly been sunshine and rainbows, I’m not sure any have been nearly as heavy. And, while I do believe that we must be willing to put ourselves face to face with difficult topics, lest we forget our own history, I also believe that it’s important to allow ourselves to indulge in lighter media for the sake of our minds and hearts.
Now, when I stared down the rather daunting list of nominees from our panel members, with topics covering everything from American presidents to natural disasters to Renaissance architecture to ancient Roman poetry, I realized my usual strategy for book selection wasn’t going to work.
I certainly couldn’t go off of what I personally found most interesting. Because then we’d be reading at least eight books. I also balked at the idea of reading a sample of each book the way I typically do, because 26 free Google Books previews probably add up to a whole book on their own.
All of this to say that I went into the selection process with a slightly different mindset than usual. My strategy boiled down to this: Let’s pick something fun.
So, naturally, I chose a book about death: Mortal Monarchs: 1000 Years of Royal Deaths by Dr. Suzie Edge.
Let’s get into it.
Ok, hear me out. Or, rather, hear out panel member Paul Schroeder, to whom we owe this magnificent suggestion.
From Paul:
“[Mortal Monarchs] is done from a medical perspective—looking at the history of the described symptoms and then hypothesizing what happened to them. I am not a physician, but it is still easy to understand. It is very funny, as Dr. Edge is a great writer. I picked this book up out of the bargain bin at the bookstore and could not put it down.”
How cool does that sound? As a non-physician myself, I am often fascinated by the science behind human life (and death). And, as someone living in the age of modern medicine and $25 Erewhon smoothies and more personal care & hygiene products than anyone from the past could possibly imagine, I am also often fascinated by what the world was like before there was a CVS on every corner and random strangers in TikTok comments telling other random strangers to check their thyroid.
In Mortal Monarchs, Dr. Edge offers step-by-step walkthroughs of the scientific processes behind all kinds of causes of death, regardless of how outwardly simple some of them may seem. For example, while we understand the basic mechanics of smothering to be “no air ⇒ can’t breathe ⇒ death,” Edge still breaks down exactly what the body goes through and what it is specifically about the process of smothering that causes death.
You’ll get your fill of super fun, old-timey ways to go, too, like dysentery and the consumption of “a surfeit of lampreys.”
Mortal Monarchs looks at more than just the science, of course. Otherwise, it wouldn’t fit our topic! In addition to getting into all the gory details of each demise, Dr. Edge explores what each death—or, rather, what the story of each death—means from a socio-historical perspective.
She writes that “the stories told about how monarchs died were never mere recordings of detail. Rather, they are morality tales, meant for the people and posterity to remember their reign. Their deaths reflected their lives, and the quality of life under them.”
Good monarchs received good endings, stories meant to paint the deceased ruler in a positive light. The deaths of the not-so-well-liked, meanwhile, became stories of “stinking putrefaction” and “ghastly death scenes.”
In other words, the truth of what happened was often embellished in some way or another, “manipulated to defend or accuse,” leaving us not just with a fascinating record of some really gnarly deaths, but with a unique sense of the state of society—its people, its politics, its fears—at the time.
As you may suspect, Mortal Monarchs does not shy away from all things gross, so if you’re squeamish, proceed with caution. Luckily, Edge’s humor comes in when you most need it, a welcome contrast (but also often a complement) to the descriptions of pus and liquified corpses and fatal bowel movements and the way bacteria go around “burping and farting as they munch away on yummy dead-king stew.”
See? Funny!
I genuinely think this book is a great read for anyone, morbid curiosity or not. If you’re into science, medicine, or the British monarchy, or you’re a big fan of names like Richard, Edward, Henry, and William, you’ll have a good time.
Enjoy, and cheerio!