This book was always around when I was growing up, and for a long time it was the book I went to if I needed to know who came after whom. It went with me to college and my roommate often squirrelled off with it (until I found her her own copy for a birthday). But I'd never actually read it before. Until now. It's fun (Murray has a dry wit) and reasonably informative, though I do find the "backwards" organization (she starts with Elizabeth II and works back to Edward the Confessor) maddening despite agreeing (to a point) with Murray's reasoning for doing it that way. About halfway through I gave up and started reading from the back. Consequently, Edward V seems sort of ultimate to me, being the king I gave up just prior to and then eventually ended up at. ( )

Obviously no book can cover every ruler from Edward the Confessor to Queen Elizabeth II in an in-depth manner, but I thought Murray did a good job at hitting the high and low points of each ruler. Definitely enough to help American tourists remember the difference between Edward II and Edward IV. The only odd thing about this book was that it started in the ‘present’ and worked its way backwards towards Edward the Confessor. Although this at first interrupted the flow for me, by the end I think it helped me piece everything together.

To read the whole review:
http://devourerofbooks.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/kings-and-queens-of-england-a-to... ( )