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Are you looking for a Christmas present for the brother (or sister) who is difficult to buy for? “The Rest is History” could be the answer. It consists of short chapters conveying curious facts from history. Some are more dubious than others — but the authors provide references!

Better illustrations than its uninspiring line drawings would have been welcome. Nevertheless, it is a light-hearted and amusing book for dipping into. You might even learn something…

It’s a mark of how popular the podcast The Rest Is History has become that it has spawned its own spin-off book. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook have their tongues firmly in cheek in delivering a series of weird and wonderful stories from across time, some of which will be familiar to avid listeners to the podcast. With its jolly and irreverent tone, The Rest Is History is for you if you like your history delivered in digestible chunks with witty asides and a dose of Dad humour.

What a fun extract! I will admit to knowing nothing about the podcast the book is from, but I will certainly look it up now.

Very easy to read style, with each section changing format to keep it fresh- from newspaper article, to top 10 list, to a choose your own adventure (my particular favourite!). The book provides interesting amusing snap shots, great to dip in and out of. It will definitely feature on my gift giving list this Christmas!

I haven't listened to the podcast from which this book takes its chapters. I found the first part about pigeons hilarious - and very interestng as I am a tour guide in a city which commemorates its brave, WW2 Dickin Medal awarded pigeon. The rest of the sections in this short sampler were interesting but not as humerous as the pigeons. Its a book I am going to put on my Christmas list as my husband never know what to buy me!

Genuinely brilliant! 5 stars!
This is the kind of book you pick up in Waterstones whilst you’re Christmas shopping and you have a little chuckle to yourself. It’s funny and interesting and is written in an easy to read style.
It’s British humour at its finest and I particularly enjoyed the segment about dogs and Hitler.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC sample, I shall be buying myself (and loved ones) a copy of this for Christmas.

This is one of my fav podcasts, always entertaining and informative. This was a lot of fun to read and I checked for the buy button at the end of the sampler on my simple.
I pre-ordered it as I was having a lot of fun and i want to have more fun and learn more.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Enjoyable but occasionally daft! I haven’t listened to The Rest is History podcast but will try it now. The book’s sampler is fun to read. My favourite part was about pigeons. Who knew that the Romans used homing pigeons!

Have you ever wondered about the top 10 dogs from history? Or the track record of carrier pigeons in a variety of conflict situations? Or how Brits got the moniker 'les Rosbifs'? While I'm not sure all these crossed my mind, I was very glad to read about them in this extract from 'The Rest is History'!

I liked that the historical information is presented with humour and a variety of interesting formats - the stage-by-stage 'Choose-your-own-Adventure'-style guide to becoming a Spartan warrior made me laugh, even though I fell at the first hurdle by being female!

This is an engaging and funny sampler - it would definitely make me want to buy the full book.

I'll start the review by admitting I am a MASSIVE fan of The Rest is History podcast so I was very excited to see a sample of the book, and it certainly didn't disappoint.

Those of us who are regular listeners will recognise some of the material as having been covered in the podcasts but that was fine by me - for example, I (very unexpectedly) loved the episode about pigeons and was really pleased to see it appear here. All sorts of subjects have been covered which I wouldn't expect to be particularly interested in normally but by the end I'm always hooked and it's the same with the book. It helps that both Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland are not only excellent communicators when they're discussing history, but both write superb books and that's reflected here. I particularly enjoyed guessing which of them was responsible for which section - I have my suspicions.

The writing style is very readable and very funny, with bite size chapters meaning it's a book you can pick up and open at random and always find something interesting. I'm less disciplined than that though - I have ordered the book (arriving today!) and know I will complete it in one sitting. It's a perfect book to buy as a gift too, for all sorts of ages. Hopefully this will be the first of many!

#TheRestisHistory #NetGalley

I really enjoyed the writing style in this extract and found it entertaining and very easy to understand. The history explored was interesting and I particularly enjoyed the section on dogs.

I will definitely need to check out this book when it is released!

My two favourite history authors combined to produce this gem of a book?! Yes please. And also how did I not know that they had a podcast!! I’ll definitely be checking it out. If the book of the podcast is anything to go by, it’ll surely be epic.

This sampler was great and set itself up to be an amazing book. It was super entertaining and very easy to read and enjoy. History can be such a dry subject if read like a textbook but you certainly won’t find that here. We have humour, history and the authors great styles of writing which will have you effortlessly reading along.

Loved it and I can’t wait for the release of the rest of the book!!

Justice for the pigeons!

What a great little extract. Filled with humour, Holland and Sandbrook do an excellent job at bringing these historical events to life. I love the multimedia aspect, from newspaper articles to choose an adventure, it makes history engaging and accessible. I love that each section is concise — it doesn’t give you a full run down, but just a snap shot at a specific area or time in history and focuses on that. It’s great. Easily digestible, written well, and, again, incredibly engaging.

Thank you for the extract Bloomsbury — I can definitely see myself buying this book in the future.