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In this edition of his Summer History Book Reading Club, Charlie Higson invites Amy Licence back to the podcast to talk about her new book, The Sixteenth Century in 100 Women. 

As part of her self-confessed mission to shine a light on forgotten but important women in history, Amy has scoured the records from Europe and beyond to tell the stories of mistresses and martyrs, witches and muses, pirates and jesters, doctors and astronomers, escapees and murderesses, colonists and saints.

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As the summer sun beats down......probably.....Charlie Higson brings you another great historical book to get your sunglasses into.

The Light Ages by Seb Falk, A Medieval Journey Of Discovery.

It's easy to form an impression of how backward and ignorant everybody was in the Middle Ages, BUT in his book, Seb explores the time through the life of an extraordinary monk, John of Westwick and he uncovers an age when people were eager to learn about the workings of the world and indeed of the stars in the universe, demonstrating just how much more people knew, than we give them credit for.

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How's the summer reading going? Well, today's episode of The Willy Willy Harry Stee Summer Reading History Book Club features a book that will grip you from start to finish, one definitely worth adding to your suitcase.

The book is Sceptred Isle and the author chatting to Charlie Higson is Helen Carr who's been a guest on the show a few times.

Helen's big interest is the Middle Ages and her book is A New History of the Fourteenth Century, an extraordinary time with some extraordinary characters right across the board.

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In this episode of The Summer History Reading Book Club, Charlie Higson is talking to Tom Phillips, author of a series of very funny books known as the ‘Brief History’ series.

These books include Humans - A Brief History of How We Fucked It All Up which was published in 2018. He followed this up with Truth - A Brief History of Total Bullshit, in 2019 – and then Conspiracy - A History of Bullshit Theories and How Not To Fall For Them, published in 2022 and as his most recent book is A Brief History of the End Of The Fucking World published this year, it's pretty clear what the main topic is in each book!

Tom is a journalist with a passion and dedication for fact-checking, which makes these books even more interesting as they separate fact from fiction.

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Yes, Summer is here and for many, that means a break and the chance to dig into a good book.

In this special set of episodes, to run through July and August, Charlie Higson delves headfirst into some of the current crop of history books and invites the authors onto the podcast.

In 1603 England was on the edge of crisis. Queen Elizabeth I had died, bringing the Tudor line to an end.

Enter King James, who reached London after an unprecedented procession from Scotland. James established a new dynasty on the English throne and the first 'united' kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales was born. The Stuarts had arrived.

But first, this new 'Great Britain' had to play catch up. England was behind, but James's global ambitions began to shift the tide. Ships departed London for America, Russia, Persia, India and Japan, and as the fledgling East India Company became ever closer to the crown, the seeds of the future British Empire were sown.

Professor Anna Whitelock's new book The Sun Rising: James I and the Dawn of a Global Britain tells this fascinating story and is the subject of this episode of Willy Willy Harry Stee.

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In this episode, Charlie Higson digs into the dark world of a man sometimes called the first serial killer.

Gilles de Rais was accused of, and eventually confessed to some awful, depraved crimes, and this was a man who was a companion in arms of Joan of Arc!

At his trial, he was hanged for the murder of 140 children, both young men and women, killed for sexual pleasure and to help him in satanic rituals.

So did he do it? There were confessions, many of which you can read even today, full of disturbing detail, but nevertheless, from nearly 600 years ago, still there for us to try and decipher.

A far easier route however is to press 'play' on this podcast as Charlie and Matthew Lewis try and separate fact from hearsay.

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